Gujarat, Rajasthan and Diu applicants won't have to go to Delhi for attestation

AHMEDABAD: Ahmedabad RPO has been given the responsibility of offering attestation and apostille services for Gujarat, Rajasthan and Diu. This will save people the trouble of going to Delhi to get their documents attested at the ministry of external affairs.
For example, currently documents for a visa have to be attested at the external affairs ministry because several agencies from the state are not recognized by foreign consulates.Hence, applicants will benefit from the new services. Ahmedabad is among 10 RPOs in the country to be selected for these services.
Ahmedabad Regional Passport officer Neelam Rani further said that the Union ministry of external affairs has started the scheme under which a person with an Aadhar card, a voter identity card and a PAN card can get a passport without police verification. The passport is issued within four days and the police verification is done later.
However, the person has to give an undertaking that there is no criminal case registered against him. Unfortunately, there is not much awareness about the scheme among people. We have not received many applications.
She futher said that if everything is clear and police verification is positive, it takes, on an average, 14 days for a passport to be issued Under the Tatkal scheme, it is issued in three days. Only those applications which have negative police clearance are pending. Otherwise, there is no backlog in Ahmedabad.
“We have been holding regular Lok Adalats to dispose of applications. In cases where the applicant does not turn up, his applicant is considered valid for a year and then it is disposed of after giving him a final notice.
The Ahmedaabad RPO has started three different grievance cells. Of these, one is exclusively for applicants who are old or children. We also have a suggestion box which people can use to offer their views and express their grievances so that we can improve the services.
The external affairs ministry is also planning to tie up with Laghu Seva Kendras or post offices for submission of the applications so that applicants don’t have to come to Ahmedabad, Vadodara or Rajkot for a passport. But these centres will work as only Passport Seva Kendras.