No end to passport travails

Hyderabad: Despite the tall claims of the Central government that several new initiatives have been taken to speed up the process of issuing passports and reduce the menace of touts, it is no exaggeration to claim a large percentage of the passports issued from the twin cities are facilitated by touts.

If you have enough money in your pocket, then middlemen are willing to offer you a host of services including getting signatures of IAS and IPS officers. The heavy rush, difficulties in getting a slot and the manner in which the applicants have to face rejections from the passport counters on trivial grounds are the major factors forcing applicants to approach the middlemen.

The Hans India team which visited the regional passport centre at Secunderabad and another centre at Tolichowki posing as applicants found out that the RPO as well as other centres are ill-equipped to handle the footfalls. Getting a slot for application within a week is also a tough task and this is where the middlemen are cashing in on the desperateness of people.

For example, Musuku Anji Reddy, an applicant from Thimmapur in Karimnagar, said, “My name was misprinted in the SSC memo. I got it corrected through Revenue Divisional Office (RDO) which took around three months. I am coming here for the second time since the documents got rejected in the first attempt. If things go wrong this time also, I will have no option but to approach the middlemen.”

The middlemen have different rates for each service. For every slot booked, they charge Rs 300 to Rs 500. Once the slot is booked and if the applicant is illiterate, they charge another Rs 1,500 for filling the application and checking the documents if they are in order.

If the applicant does not have a voter ID card or Aadhaar card, they are too happy to arrange for one for a price. Similarly, if the applicant does not know any IAS or IPS officer to attest the application, the middlemen will offer it at a premium. They charge anything up to Rs 20,000 for it. The rates go up if the applicant wants to apply under Tatkal scheme.

The only saving grace is that not many middlemen at the RPO are into fake documents trade. “After several arrests of RPO employees in 2012, the fake documents trade has subsided. There are a few who still specialise in this and it is a different racket,” one of the middleman said. The applicants have themselves to blame for the current state of affairs, as they want a passport despite not having all the documents in order and that too in shortest possible time.

“We are not cheating or fleecing anybody nor asking anyone not to apply directly through seva kendras. What we are charging is just our service charge. If an applicant is not having any photo identification proof (Voter ID or Aadhar card), it is their choice whether to get it done or not.

If they ask us to get it done, we charge for that,” an agent near Ameerpet PSK said. Another tout near Begumpet PSK who claims he has connections inside says he can get the passport work done easily. He asks the applicants to write down details and leave it with the parking lot caretaker who is his associate.

When asked about the menace of middlemen, Deputy Passport officer L Madan Kumar Reddy said, “After the passport seva project came into force, there are no authorised agents. If we get complaints we will take action. The sad part is that even the educated go to agents. People’s participation is important to completely get rid of them.

People should understand that when there are problems, it is the applicant who suffers not the agent. There have been instances when we went out of our way and got people arrested. If cases are brought to our notice, we will definitely take action,” he said. But the fact is that the middlemen operate right under the nose of the officials and even cyber cafes in and around the passport regional offices have started playing the role of middlemen.

By:Aditya Parankusam/ Victor Rao