Police verification for passports made easy – All you want to know

Keeping in line with its promise to make passport issuance easier, and to expedite the process, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has introduced ‘mPassport Police App’ which will make police verification easier and most importantly paperless.

Since Police Verification is an integral part of the Passport Issuance system, the government has been taking various steps to streamline and to make the whole procedure easy.

On the occasion of Delhi Police Raising Day on Thursday (Feb 16, 2023) the Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah dedicated 350 mobile Tablets to the personnel of Special Branch/Delhi Police. With these mobile Tablets the police personnel who go to individual places for verification will now easily submit his/her report digitally and paperless.

How will this help?

According to MEA the process of verification through the mobile tablet is expected to cut down the verification time from 15 days to just 5 days and this is a great step towards bringing in improvement in citizen services. And this means that there will be a reduction in the passport issuance time by almost 10 days. The mobile Tablets issued are for Delhi Police jurisdiction only, said officials.

The MEA has been bringing in changes in the rules and issuance procedures to make it easy for the citizens.

Financial Express Online has reported earlier that in collaboration with the Department of Posts, it has strengthened its outreach of passport services and this includes the setting up of Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK). These are located across the country.

So far there is a huge network of 555 Passport Kendras across the country and this also includes 36 Passport Offices, 93 Passport Seva Kendra and 426 Post Office Passport Seva Kendra.

There is also a centralized passport issuance system for not just the Indian Citizens but also the Diaspora and this means that 174 Indian Missions and Posts have been integrated into the Passport Seva Programme.

Technology and DigiLocker

Technology and digital systems have been used by the MEA into its functioning and Passport issuance. It has also integrated DigiLocker with the Passport Seva Programme.

What is DigiLocker?

This helps the citizens to submit their various documents in a paperless mode and this means that no need to carry your original documents when you reach the Passport Kendra.