NEW DELHI (PTI): Federal Indian government Dec. 1 ruled out issuance of dual passports for non- resident Indians since it had not yet accepted the concept of dual citizenship.
Replying to a discussion on the passports (Amendment) Bill 1992, in the lower house of Parliament (Lok Sabha), minister of state for external affairs R.L.Bhatia said those applying for the passports can do so directly through post office and would get it by post.
He said the government had done away with the system of travel agents securing passports and applicants would get it a month after submission of application even if police verification has not been completed within the time period.
Bhatia said government has directed embassies to give necessary certificates to those who had lost their travel documents, to enable them to return to India.
Thanking the members for pas- sage of the Bill, he said government Proposed to issue jumbo passports for frequent travellers at a cost of Rs 500, so that they need not make regular trips to the passport offices.
Bhatia said 400 additional staff was being appointed in passport offices to speed up the process and computerized system had been introduced in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore passport offices.
He sought the members’ support for getting more funds for improving the functioning of the passport offices and it was pro- posed to computerize some more of these offices.
However Bhatia was unable to give the amount of financial expenditure that would be required for streamlining the functioning of passport offices.
Meanwhile, the Nasix security Press has promised to increase the number of passport booklets printed (025 lakhs from next year, which was almost double the present capacity of about 12 lakhs, he said.
Conceding the Members” demand for speeding up the process of issuance of Passports, he said all efforts were on to improve it and see that there were fewer problems in securing passports.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 18, 1992
