Cachar Police to organise “Passport Mela”, aims to ease the Police Verification process

The Cachar Police has announced organising a “Passport Mela” on October 30, which will be the first of its kind in the district. This has been done to better facilitate the pending passport applications of the district. The “Passport Mela” will start at 10 in the morning at the premise of the SP Office in Tarapur. This one-day exercise is aimed to cater to direct updates on the central website of the passport service. A passport serves as an important document to prove one’s citizenship. Even though its main use lies with international travel, in unofficial terms, this is the highest proof of an individual’s citizenship and identity.

Police verification is an important step in getting hold of one’s passport and that is one step where many applications get stuck. For that particular reason, there are thousands of pending applications with the district police. This police verification at times becomes harassment for the public and many faces a hard time proving their citizenship.

Speaking to Barak Bulletin correspondent, Cachar SP Numal Mahatta said, “We are doing this for the first time and we expect to reduce the pending loads of passport applications. We want people with genuine papers who are unable to process their applications in terms of Police Verification or Character and Antecedent verification. There are many genuine applicants whose applications are pending and our goal is to cater to these people”

About the mela, the senior APS officer further said, “Many a time we hear complaints of people who pay a middleman for the clearance of citizenship or police verification, this mela will reduce these issues. There will be on-the-spot approval for the pending applicants who have genuine documents. Since everything needs to be updated in the central government’s portal, we are setting up five desks where operators will update the data in real-time, so that there is no further piling up of work”.

This exercise will start at 10 AM this Sunday and will be inaugurated by MP Dr Rajdeep Roy. Cachar SP has further appealed to the applicants to reach the Passport Mela with their pending applications and take advantage of the service.