Police issues new guidelines to streamline passport verification

Kolkata: The Kolkata Police has sent detailed guidelines to all police stations for streamlining the process of passport verification amid recent allegations of irregularities.

The move assumes significance in the backdrop of the Alipore Court’s recent questioning of the role of the police officers responsible for document verification in connection with issuance of passport .

“We have held detailed meetings with officials of the passport office and have analysed the lapses involved in the work of document verification on the part of police. We have already come out with a mechanism on plugging such lapses and have issued a detailed guideline streamlining the entire process,” said Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma.

The issue was discussed in length in the monthly crime conference of the Kolkata Police held on Saturday.

A senior police official informed that the nodal officer of each police station involved in the verification process has been briefed in detail and have been cautioned against such lapses in future.

The guidelines include verification of any crime record of the applicant even from other states’ police, documentation of the verification process and proper verification of the applicant’s address.

The nodal officers have been directed to keep the officer in charge of the concerned police station informed of the report of the applicant before submission of the same to the passport office.

Higher police officials in the rank of DCs and ACs have been asked to keep an eye on the police stations to ascertain whether the passport verification process is being carried out in adherence to the guidelines issued.