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Cops vouch to complete passport verification in 10 days

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Police commissioner Rakesh Maria at a press conference to announce a new passport initiative on Thursday
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Following allegations of delay and corruption in the passport verification process, the Mumbai police, in co-ordination Regional Passport Office (RPO), is devising a method of simplifying the process, which will ensure completion of police verification within ten days, instead of the usual 30-40 days time.

"Mumbai is the first metropolitan city which has taken up this endeavour, so applicants need not go through a cumbersome process," said Mumbai police commissioner, Rakesh Maria.

As per MEA guidelines, the police verification process should complete within 21 days. As per regional passport officer, Swati Kulkarni, on an average, 1,700 applications for passports are received in Mumbai daily.

As per the new initiative, relevant documents of the applicant will be sent directly from the Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) to the concerned police station online. Earlier, the hard copies of these documents would go to Special Branch II of the city police and then to the police station concerned.

On receipt of these forms, the police station will conduct a physical, residential address and criminal antecedent verification within seven days. Each police station will then submit the verification report to Special Branch II of CID in physical format. The passport branch of SB II will scrutinize these documents and submit the report online to RPO, followed by the hard copies, the next working day.

"This entire exercise will be completed in 10 days," said Maria, adding, "The applicant will be intimated about their application status by a text message from Mumbai police once the application reaches the concerned police station. The applicant should then visit the police station at the earliest, upon the receipt of this text message."

Except Monday, the applicants can visit the police station from 9am-11 am and 6pm-8pm.

On completion of verification, the applicant will receive a second text message, informing the applicant about of the report being sent to the RPO. To know the status and to convey passport related grievances, a helpline number 7715800000 has been launched. Applicants can send their detailed grievances via email to:

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