Waiting Shelter to Come Up Outside Passport Seva Kendra - Coimbatore

The Regional Passport Office in Coimbatore has decided to construct a temporary shelter outside the Passport Seva Kendra for persons accompanying passport applicants.

MDMK youth wing secretary V Eswaran had written to Chief Minister’s cell seeking a waiting shelter for public at Passport Seva Kendra in Coimbatore. His petition was forwarded to the Regional Passport Office in Coimbatore.

In his reply to Eswaran, Regional Passport Officer S Sasikumar said, on an average around 750-800 applicants per day are visiting the Passport Seva Kendra for submission of passport applications. Also some applicants like senior citizens, children, physically challenged are accompanied by a family member.

“The applicants were entertained in a staggered manner by giving prior appointment with date and time through online registration of applications at the website of the Ministry of External Affairs. In the existing system, applicants are supposed to report at the PSK just 15 minutes ahead of the appointment time,” he added.

He further said, “During the appointment slot, only applicant can be entertained inside PSK due to security reasons. But, steps were already taken to allow senior citizens, infants and physically-challenged to be accompanied by one or two persons.”

“The Passport Seva Kendra is functioning in the ground floor of a multi-storey building on a rental basis. Other floors of the same building are occupied by some other offices. Hence, feasibility for providing a shelter with basic facilities, exclusively for the passport applicants and their accompanied family members, is practically very difficult and will attract adverse criticism from other occupants of the same building,” Sasikumar added.

However, steps were taken to provide shelter to the accompanying persons outside the PSK and a temporary shelter is being constructed. It will be put to public use soon, he said.

In addition, permanently all these facilities can be provided to the passport applicants, once Passport Office and PSK are moved to an own building for which the process is in pipeline, he added.


Source : The New Indian Express, 23rd Oct 2015