As many as 700 deportees are set to get their new passports, as Indians embassies and missions in foreign countries have cleared their names. Over 1,500 such cases had been pending in the Jalandhar Passport office. Now, the department has claimed that all pendign cases in this regard have been cleareed.
Speaking with Hindustan Tines, passport officer Harmanbir Singh Gill said that some of the cases evemnpertained to 2004.
"In a lok adalat held in the first week of March, we issued passport to 814 such cases. At that time, nearly 400 cases reamined pending. As the process to clear these started, we got more such cases from Passport Sewa Kendras being maintained by Tata Consultancy Services," he said.
"My office staff has been working hard over the past 45 days to arrange the required documents and clearances from missions on different aspects of these deported cases to clear the big backlog," he added.
"We started a helpline in our office with thee dedicated numbers 0181-2242114, 2242115, 2242116 for such cases. Using the facility, deported countries from 2004 onwards contacted us. We succeeded in getting in touch with them and exempted them from personal appearance," he said adding that, "I personally observed the process to ensure early clearance of pending cases."
"We also used video conferencing to talk to the missionaries and embassies situated in other countries for early receipt of documents. Online discussions and transferring of details had helped in getting quick results. On April 6, we are calling all those whose required documents had been procured by us to get their passports," Gill said.
{{/usCountry}}"We also used video conferencing to talk to the missionaries and embassies situated in other countries for early receipt of documents. Online discussions and transferring of details had helped in getting quick results. On April 6, we are calling all those whose required documents had been procured by us to get their passports," Gill said.
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