Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Feb 20: In order to augment the passport services throughout the Jammu and Kashmir, Government of India (GoI) has approved Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) for Udhampur and Leh.
The Regional Passport Offices at Jammu and Srinagar along with the office of the Circle Post Master General, J&K have been assigned as the nodal agencies to ensure immediate establishment of same.
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Department of Posts (DOP) had announced on January 24, 2017 their decision to utilize the Head Post Offices (HPO) in the various States as Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) for delivering passport related services to the citizens.
While speaking, Vimarsh Aryan, RPO Jammu said that the objective of this partnership is to extend passport services on a larger scale and to ensure wider area coverage. He further added that opening of a POPSK at Udhampur will be an added advantage to the residents of nearby hilly districts like Reasi, Doda, Ramban and Kishtwar, who would be able to file their applications without even coming to Jammu now.
The pilot projects for this joint venture between MEA and DOP was inaugurated on January 25, 2017 at the HPO at Mysuru in Karnataka by Ananth Kumar, Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs and at the Post Office at Dahod in Gujarat by Gen (Retd) Dr VK Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs and Jaswantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Government of India. The POPSK at these two places have been running successfully since their inauguration. One hundred appointments are being released every day for each of these POPSK.
With the successful operationalization of these two pilot projects, the Government has now decided to scale up this programme by opening 56 POPSKs at the various places in the first batch of expansion under which Jammu and Kashmir got two POPSKs. Both offices will initially begin with 100 passport appointments per day.
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