Home ministry unwilling to relax verification process: Tharoor

Despite several requests for simplification of police verification process while issuing passports, the home ministry is not willing to relax the same due to various security aspects, Union minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor said today.
    
The external affairs ministry is talking to the home ministry to simplify the police verification process. "But due to security concerns, the ministry is unwilling to relax or simplify the present norms," he told reporters here.
    
He was replying to a question on backlog of passport applications due to delay in police verification.
    
Citing the recent issue of passports to two Pakistanis "despite police verification", he said it was a cause for worry, indicating that the verification was "not foolproof".
    
To a query on accepting postal ID as proof for applying for passport, he said there are no immediate plans to add any more documents to existing ones. However, once the Unique Identification Number was alloted, it would be easier for the applicants, he said.
    
On the number of vacancies in regional passport offices, which also contributed to the backlog, Tharoor said he would study the issue after going to Delhi and take necessary steps to provide more manpower.

Later, speaking to reporters after visiting the regional passport office here, Tharoor said the ministry would open 75 'passport seva kendras' in a phased manner, depending on the success of such centres opened in Bangalore and Chandigarh on a pilot basis.
    
He said a report on the functioning of these centres like efficacy of the system and software was expected in three months. "If the report is satisfactory, more kendras will be in place this year and also in two or three phases," he said.
    
However, the ministry was not in a position to fix a time frame as it has to identify suitable locations and get the software and systems ready for the purpose, he said.
    
All states would have at least one such 'kendra', he said, adding this was allotted not based on the population, but on the volume of applications being received from eachcentre.
    
"No states have been left out in the process," he said.