Lekhanath Pandey

To curb fraudulent activities in the name of passport loss, the Department of Passports has decided not to reissue passports for at least six months after the loss is reported, except in cases where the applicant proves that the loss is genuine.

Stating that passport loss is a serious crime, the DoP has proposed an amendment to the existing Passport Regulations 2010. “We have found that most cases of the said passport-loss are not genuine,” Acting Director General of the DoP Yadav Khanal told THT.

The government has been charging Rs 10,000 (twice the normal fee) as fee for the re-issuance of a lost passport. But it hasn’t proved to be a deterrent, and applications for re-issuance of lost passports have been piling up. According to Khanal, once the regulations are amended, the loss will have to be reported to the police.

Only if the police investigation finds the loss to be genuine will the DoP accept the application for another passport before the sixmonth general provision.

Otherwise application for passport renewal will be accepted six months after the loss is reported to the police.

“It’s the bearer’s duty to keep his/her document safe,” Khanal said. DoP claims that in most cases passport loss is faked after the applicant’s visa is rejected by foreign embassies or human resource agents don’t return his/her passport.

A proposal to revise the regulations has been sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. DoP has also advised the MoFA to initiate the process of issuing e-passport with biometric device, apropos the call of International Civil Aviation Organisation to introduce smartpassports after 2015.

The government has been issuing machine readable passports since 26 December 2010 with a validity period of 10 years. Khanal said MRPs would be valid till their expiry despite the ICAO’s call to introduce epassports.

Khanal said the office had proposed three time-frames for passport issuance: very urgent, urgent and normal.

Currently, the DoP issues passports in two time frames: normal channel with a delivery time of oneand-a-half months costing applicant Rs 5,000 and a fast-track channel that ensures passport within a week for Rs 10,000. If the proposed provision is applied, passport would be issued within 48 hours at extra cost to the applicant.

 Published on: 30 March 2013 | The Himalayan Times