Passport to be issued before police verification

Visakhapatnam: The issue of passports has been further simplified with the Ministry of External Affairs deciding to streamline the procedure of police verification in respect to the applications submitted for the first time under normal category. As per the scheme, a fresh passport could be issued on post-verification basis.

Passport officer N L P Choudary said that if an applicant submits Aadhaar card, Electoral Photo Identity Card (EPIC), PAN card and an affidavit in the format of Annexure-I, passport will be issued immediately and police verification will be carried out later. No additional fee will be collected.

However, all these documents will be verified online by the passport authorities before issuing the passport,” he said.
Choudary said that the applicant should ensure that the details mentioned in the documents should tally with the particulars furnished in the passport application. Passport in such cases will be issued first and then police verification would be done later. This enables one to get passports early without waiting for the police verification.