Bengaluru Office Issues Record Number Of Passports

BENGALURU:The regional passport office here in Karnataka issued a record 2.7 lakh passports in the first five months of this year, generating a revenue of 44 crore, an official said.

"Our target is to issue 6.5 lakh passports this year (2015) as against 5.24 lakh passports in 2014, earning 98 crore," state regional passport officer P.S. Karthigeyan told reporters.

In a public-private partnership, IT bellwether Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) handles thousands of applications at the front end while staff of the external affairs ministry (passport division) processes them at the back end for issuing passports to citizens staying across the state.

"Our regional office delivered a record 21 lakh passports since the country's first passport centre was set up here in May 2010 and generated 348 crore over the last five years," Karthigeyan said.

Unlike in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which have four regional passport offices, Karnataka has only one, with only four seva kendras (service centres), including two in Bengaluru and one each at Hubballi in the northern region and Mangaluru in the coastal region.

"We recently upgraded the passport application processing centre at Kalaburgi (about 650 km from Bengaluru) into a full-fledged service centre to enable citizens living in the four northern districts of Bidar, Raichur, Yadgir and Kalaburgi to complete the formalities, including submission of documents for issuing passports from here," he said.
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