Coimbatore Passport Office Opend
External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee inaugurating the passport office in Coimbatore on Sunday. (From right) Rural Industries Minister Pongalur N. Palanisamy, Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram, Union Ministers Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan, EVKS Elangovan, G.K.Vasan and Member of Parliament S.K.Karvendhan are in the picture. The Ministry of External Affairs is working on extending biometric e-passport facility to people by September 2009, according to Pranab Mukherjee, Union Minister for External Affairs. The Passport Seva Project to issue tatkal passport the same day and ordinary passport in three days would become a reality in the last quarter of next year, Mr. Mukherjee said here on Sunday. Inaugurating the Coimbatore Passport office, he said the Ministry had already launched the biometric e-passport for diplomatic and official categories, making India the first developing country to issue such passports. The full roll-out of e-passports for the ordinary category was expected by September 2009. These passports could not be forged and could facilitate easier movement on the border points that were equipped with e-passport reading facilities.
In the event of applications requiring police verification under the Seva Project, the three days’ time would be applicable from the time of completing the verification. The project would have 68 passport facilitation centres. The service provider chosen through open bidding would perform the non-sovereign functions such as initial scrutiny, acceptance of fee, scanning of documents and taking photographs. The government staff at the centres would verify the application, documents and decide on granting of passport. The Passport Office would do the printing and despatch. Police verification would be expedited through electronic linkage of the facilitation centres with the police department.
Mr. Mukherjee said this was the fourth passport office in the State and 37th in the country. Last year, six lakh passports were issued jointly by the Regional Passport Office, Chennai, and offices in Tiruchi and Madurai. The number of applications from Tamil Nadu was expected to be around seven lakh this year.
In the first eight months of 2008, about 40,000 passports had been issued to applicants from Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Erode, Namakkal and Salem districts. Till now, applicants from these districts had to come to Chennai. About 50 lakh passports were issued last year across the country, compared to 22 lakh in 2000. All the 37 passport offices had been computerised to simplify the passport issuing process and make it people friendly. Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said the Passport Office in Coimbatore was a long-felt need of the region.
Later, speaking to presspersons, Mr. Mukherjee said the 123 nuclear agreement was bilateral and therefore would not impact nuclear trade with countries such as France and Russia. On reports of the U.S. getting into a “secret political understanding” with Russia and France to not go by the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group waiver for India, Mr. Mukherjee said the deal was between India and the U.S. and there was no clause that could cause any setback to the prospects of nuclear trade with Russia and France. He also said that no clause in the deal should prohibit India from conducting nuclear tests. Mr. Mukherjee said the serial blasts in New Delhi were unfortunate and India had been the worst victim of terrorism. He exhorted the international community to join hands in combating terrorism.
To a query on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s charge that intelligence interception inputs were ignored by the Congress-led government at the Centre, Mr. Mukherjee said this was not the time for passing the buck. The country did not require an exclusive law to combat terrorism as there was no dearth of laws to deal with it.
