Telangana police bags award for best performance in passport

Telangana has bagged two awards for best performance in passport police verification and delivery of passport services for the year 2017-18, a senior official said today.

Telangana Police has once again been adjudged the best state police in the country for their outstanding work in police verification and has achieved this distinction for the third consecutive year, Hyderabad Regional Passport Officer E Vishnu Vardhan Reddy said.

"While the national average for 2017-18 is 21 days, the average time taken by Telangana Police to complete Passport Police Verification during the same period is just four days," he said.

In addition, this year, Regional Passport Office, Hyderabad, has also stood first in overall performance among Category A (issuing more than 5 lakh passports annually) Offices, he said.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will present the awards at the annual Passport Seva Divas and Passport Officers' Conference to be held in New Delhi on June 26, Reddy said.

To further simply and streamline police verification process, the External Affairs Ministry has recently asked all State/UT Police authorities to limit passport verification to criminal antecedents of the applicants, he said.

The ministry has also approved the integration of 'VeriFast' application used by Telangana Police for passport verification with the Passport Seva System and the process is likely to be completed by end of this month, Reddy said.

This is expected to further reduce the time taken for police verification in Telangana state.