Online Police Verification Of Passport Applications In Bangalore

If you make an application to passport office for a passport the same is transferred to local police station for verification of the antecedents of the applicant. The entire procedure takes lots of time. Bangalore has shown a novel method of reducing this time to a great extent.

In Bangalore the physical transfer of passport applications to the police has been eliminated with the setting up of a direct online link with the passport office. This would reduce the time taken for processing applications. Commissioner of Police Seemant Kumar Singh has informed that the computer terminal had already been set up in this regard.

This would eliminate the process of physically transferring the applications from the passport office to the police stations concerned for verification and back. Applications would be sent to the commissioner's office from where it would be directed to the station concerned. After verification, the digital signature of the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) would clear the application on behalf of the Police Commissioner. After that applications would be returned to the passport office online.

Since it was a new unit, the passport office in Bangalore had to assign a new digital signature for the office. Because of the delay in setting up the computer terminal, 1,000 applications were pending with the Police Commissioner for verification.

This is an ambitious initiative and if managed properly can be a good example of use of e-governance for better delivery of public services in India.