CHANDIGARAH, India: Backlog of the applications for the grant of fresh passports has been mounting up at the regional passport office, this year. There were nearly 25 thousand applications pending for clearance. One of the reasons for the inflating backlog a near vacuum at the top. The regional passport officer ArJun Kumar has only been there for a week;. The posts of the assistant passport officers have been lying vacant for a long time. The third officer empowered to sanction Passport, a public relations officer was transferred’ to Goa early this week. The fourth and the only functional! Officer at the regional passport office is Mr. R.D: Gupta. On an average 600800 applications are submitted at the Chandigarh passport office on each working day.
In the absence of senior officers the work remains impaired. Besides such applications there are large number of service cases pending in the Chandigarh office. On a number of occasions the ministry of external affairs has been requested’ to provide adequate staff at the Chandigarh office but to no avail. Ever since the transfer of J.L. Puri, the staff here has remained below the adequate level.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 10, 1987
