Regional Passport Officer for Pune, Anant Takwale Regional Passport Officer for Pune, Anant Takwale Regional Passport Officer for Pune and an IPS officer of 2006 batch, Anant Takwale, tells Pune Newsline how Pune region coped when its jurisdiction was doubled, and still managed to bring down the waiting time for passport applicants, and why people should not hide information while filling their passport forms. In the past, one had to produce many documents concerning date of birth, place of birth, current and permanent address to get a passport. Nowadays, one can get a passport by just showing one document — Aadhaar. While this has made things easier for applicants, it also poses a danger as anti-social elements might exploit this for nefarious purposes. Recently, there was a case in the city wherein an Afghan national managed to get an Indian passport. How can this be prevented? Passport is a global identity and it’s a right of every individual. A passport provides an individual with the liberty to go anywhere in the world. The role of the passport office is to facilitate the process of a citizen getting his passport, which is his right. Facilitating a passport and making the process seamless for citizens doesn’t pose any danger to security. We have not got rid of the police verification process. It’s very much there and frauds are caught in that process. About the issue (of Afghan citizen getting the passport), it should have been caught during the police verification process. After it came to light, the police are investigating how he managed to get the passport. We (the passport office) have powers to impound a passport if it is found to have been acquired by providing false information… and we have impounded it. Police have their own powers and they are investigating the case and will take proper criminal action against the fraudster. Last year, the Pune region’s jurisdiction doubled with the addition of six districts from Marathwada to the six existing districts from western Maharashtra. How did you manage to deal with the additional responsibility? We have opened as many as 11 Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) across the Pune region in last few months. With addition of new districts, the demand has gone up, but we have managed to keep up with the supply by opening new seva kendras. Today, we release over 2,400 application slots everyday, which is more than enough to meet the demand, and also keeps the waiting period for fresh appointments to just one to two days. But has the police verification process caught up with the changes brought in by the Ministry of External Affairs? Until some months ago, the Maharashtra Police was among the slowest in the country in terms of completing the verification process, with an average time of 20 days… The police verification has indeed caught up, especially in the Pune district. Earlier in Pune police limits, it used to take 15 days. Now, the time taken for police report is just seven days. Formation of the Pimpri-Chinchwad police commissionerate has also helped… Also, they are increasing number of servers that will fasten the online process. In interior districts and rural areas, the average time is 15 to 17 days. What are the most frequently made errors by citizens while filling passport applications? It is an applicant’s responsibility to provide accurate information. Many times they provide current address wrong. This is, mostly, done deliberately at the advise of agents who tell them to write permanent address as current address — even though the applicant doesn’t stay at the permanent address. Another frequent case of providing false information is hiding criminal record. People are often afraid that if they have a criminal proceeding pending against them, they will not get a passport. This is wrong. Such people have to get a permission from the concerned judge, who often allows the passport to be made for one or many years. Errors in writing of name, spelling is another frequent reason for imposing penalty. People should know that if they provide false information, they will get caught during police verification. In Pune region, we collect Rs 1 lakh in penalties every day. We want it to come down to zero. Work on the new passport office building in Baner seems to have been delayed. It started in 2016 and was supposed to take a year. It’s nowhere close to completion… The work is being done by the CPWD and only they will be able to clarify why it’s getting delayed. For all the latest Pune News, download Indian Express App

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