Passport check: Salt Lake, Howrah, Kolkata beat other districts – Times of India

KOLKATA: Police verification report (PVR), which makes or breaks a passport application, takes anything between 11 days to 169 days in Bengal. While Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate takes only 11 days to complete a PVR, South Dinajpur police district takes nearly half a year to complete the process.
The PVR generation process has been simplified over the years. Police verification becomes easier when the verifying personnel use m-app. However, in Bengal, only two police districts — Kolkata and Bidhannagar Police commissionerates — use m-passport police app for PVR generation and its timely dispatch.

“In fact, to encourage timely submission of PVR, we give an incentive of Rs 150 per verification if the PVR is submitted within 21 days. The fund is used by police districts to buy tabs for verifying officers to carry out verification seamlessly. By using the m-app on tabs, states like Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Telangana, Haryana have reduced the time to 5-6 days,” said regional passport officer, Kolkata region, Bibhuti Bhushan Kumar.
In Bengal, Bidhannagar City Police is the most efficient police district as far as PVR generation is concerned. On an average, Bidhannagar takes only 11 days. In fact, Howrah Police Commissionerate, without using the m-passport app, manages PVR within 18 days. Kolkata Police these days reportedly takes 23 days.
But in north Bengal districts, the delay is inordinate. South Dinajpur takes as many as 169 days, Darjeeling 125 days and Jalpaiguri 101 days. “In fact, thanks to multiple documents, we don’t even expect police to verify address, unless the application is suspicious. The job of the police is to establish nationality and criminal antecedence, if any,” said an officer.
A large number of passport applications in Bengal were recently closed because of the non-receipt of police verification report (PVR) by the regional passport office, Kolkata. Delay over PVR not only held up passports issuance but denied passports to a bonafide applicants.
RPO, Kolkata, took full advantage of the pandemic by clearing all backlogs. “Since we had low turnout of applicants, we dedicated ourselves to clear backlogs. We called the applicants and cleared their passports all this while. Thus, we have come to a point of zero backlog position,” said Kumar.
A senior officer said they would inquire into it and try to resolve issues delaying the PVR. The officer said the state might start a helpline to address the issues.
Kolkata RPO, which takes care of Bengal, Sikkim, Tripura and Andaman-Nicobar union territory, used to process 4,500 passport applications before Covid-19 hit the nation. “Now, we are processing 1,500 per day as foreign travel has come down. Apart from Passport Seva Kendras, Bengal has the highest number of Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (PoPSKs) to reach out the service at people’s doorstep,” said an official. Kumar also alerted against fake sites, which are duping a very high number of passport applicants.