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Steep hike in passport fees from April 1

The government on Thursday announced a steep hike in passport fee with applicants for ordinary new passports having to pay Rs 1,000 instead of the existing Rs 300 per application with effect from April 1.

The fee for jumbo passports containing 60 pages has shot up from Rs 800 to Rs 1,500.

Announcing the hike, J C Sharma, secretary, passports, coordination and diaspora in the external affairs ministry, told reporters that this measure was aimed at meeting the rising costs of issue of passports and expenditure towards modernisation of offices, computerisation of processes and requirements.

As a major step in decentralisation of the passport process, it is proposed to create district passport cells with computer links with the concerned passport office, Sharma said.

He said the state governments would be reimbursed Rs 200 per application to meet cost of manpower, computer equipment and office space for the new facility.

Police verification procedures are also being simplified. A person seeking passport renewal while staying at the same residence mentioned in the earlier passport will now need no police verification.

For government officials too there will be no police verification, but they will have to get a no-objection certificate for this purpose from the concerned departmental heads.

For those applying for India-Bangladesh and India-Sri Lanka passports, the fee will be Rs 500. For observations, endorsements in the passport like change of address, emigration clearance not required (ECNR) endorsement, name of spouse, etc, the fee is Rs 300 and for miscellaneous service requiring a new passport booklet of 36 pages will be Rs 500 and for 60 pages it will be Rs 700.

The fee for ordinary passport with a maximum validity of five years for minor children below the age of 18 years has been fixed at Rs 600, while one has to pay Rs 2,500 for issuance of duplicate passport of 36 pages in lieu of lost, damaged or stolen passport.

In order to upgrade Indian passports standards, Sharma said that the machine-writing of passports had already been implemented in six passport offices and would commence in eight more offices shortly.

A massive project to scan and computerise all the records of the passport offices under implementation and new security features are being added to the passport booklets, he said, pointing out that all these measures required substantial investment.

To a question, Sharma said issuing of passports for 20 years had been done away with and now only passports having validity for ten years were being issued. He said a person's face undergoes changes a lot in 20 years.

Sharma said the government has been spending considerable amount of money for upgrading the existing 28 passport offices and constructing as well as renting new and spacious offices for the facility of passport applicants.

The government has also embarked on a project for computerisation of the consular wings in the missions and posts abroad and the consular wings at the High Commission of India, Colombo and Consulate General of India, Dubai would soon be computerised, he said.

As the ongoing 'Tatkal Scheme' has been very successful in meeting the genuine demands of applicants for the urgent issue of passports, the fee for 'Tatkal' service is not being increased, he said.

Even after this hike, the fee regime compares favourably with the passport fee in neighbouring countries which in Indian rupees is about Rs 1,500 in Pakistan, Rs 1,560 in Nepal, Rs 1,300 in Sri Lanka, Rs 800 in Bhutan and Rs 3,800 in Malaysia, Sharma said.

Passport offices in the country issued 2.780 million passports in 2001 which reflected an increase of 24 per cent over the passports issued in 2000, he said, adding the number of passport applications received was 2.889 million in 2001 against 2.588 million in 2000.

The revised passport fee schedule for all applications presented at the Passport Office or District Passport Application Collection Centre or Speed Post Centres from April 1, 2002 would be as follows:

Ordinary passport (36 pages)	1000	40
Jumbo passport (60 pages)	1500	50
India-Bangladesh and India-Sri Lanka passport	500	20
Observations/Endorsements	300	10
Miscellaneous service for new passport booklet (36 pages)	500	20
Miscellaneous service for new booklet (60 pages)	700	25
Ordinary passport booklet (36 pages) for minors	600	25
Duplicate passport (36 pages)	2500	125
Duplicate (India-Bangladesh) (India-Sri Lanka) passport	1000	30

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