New Passport Seva Kendra at Salem HPO by February end

All works on setting up the Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) proposed by the Ministry of External Affairs at Salem East Postal Division Head Post Office (HPO) are nearing completion and the new facility will be commissioned by February end.

S. Sasikumar, Regional Passport Officer, Coimbatore, told presspersons here on Monday that the MEA decided to open POPSKs in 56 centres across the country with the support of the Department of Posts in the respective head post offices.

The pilot projects were inaugurated at the Head Post Office in Mysuru in Karnataka and the post office at Dahod in Gujarat on January 25. The POPSK at these two centres have been running successfully since their inauguration.

The list of 56 POPSK’s included included two in Tamil Nadu – Salem city under the jurisdiction of Coimbatore Regional Passport Office and Vellore.

Applicants from Salem district can submit their applications through the POPSK and the works of processing, police verification and interview will be done here itself.

Mr. Sasikumar said that initially the staff from the Regional Passport Office, Coimbatore, would handle the POPSK. Simultaneously, training would be imparted to the Postal Department staff who would be posted at a later period.

It has been targeted to receive and process applications ranging between 150 and 200 per day in the new POPSK.

Replying to a question, Mr. Sasikumar said that on an average, the Regional Passport Office at Coimbatore registered an increase of 10 to 15 per cent applications every year. The MEA recently liberalised various rules for the submission of applications for the passport due to which the receipt of applications had increased to about 30 per cent.

Accompanied by B. Arumugam, Senior Superintendent of Post Offices, Salem East Postal Division, and K. Mariappan, president, Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry-Salem, Mr. Sasikumar inspected the works in progress at the venue.