TIRUPATI: External Affairs Minister SM Krishna formally inaugurated the seven Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) set up in the state on Friday. At a function held in the temple town, he unveiled the plaques of PSKs set up at Tirupati, Hyderabad (Ameerpet, Begumpet and Tolichowki), Vizag, Nizamabad and Vijayawada. The seven PSKs are among the 77 Kendras proposed in the country.Speaking on the occasion, Krishna said the government set up the PSKs to speed up the issue of passports to people. India is a fast growing economy in the world now.The number of Indians going abroad has increased rapidly in the last few years. The number of applications received for passports in recent years has almost doubled. Hence, the government decided to set up PSKs in cities and big towns to enable people to get passports speedily.The minister said six lakh passport applications were received by the Regional Passport Offices in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam till November this year, which is 25 per cent more than the number of applications received during the same period last year.He emphasised the need for better coordination between the passport offices and the police department to speed up the issue of passports.Describing Andhra Pradesh as a pioneer in egovernance in the country, he said online processing of passports is the flagship of the national egovernance programme.Expressing satisfaction over the functioning of the PSKs, Krishna said the pilot programme would be taken to the second level as it started yielding better results.Of the 77 PSKs proposed in the country, 30 have already started functioning. Nine more will commence their operations by January. The remaining Kendras will be set up by March 2012. MiniPSKs will be set at Karimnagar and Bhimavaram in West Godavari district, he said.The Union minister said a PKS would be set up in a city or town if the total number of passport applications received from that places exceeds 30,000 per annum.Revenue minister N Raghuveera Reddy said the Kendras would help people of the state in a big way as they need not go to Hyderabad incurring huge expenses for getting passports. On an average 5 lakh people apply for passports per annum and each one is spending Rs 20,000. Now, a huge sum of Rs 1,000 crore can be saved. "We are really grateful to the external affairs minister for setting up seven PSKs in the state," he said.Mines and geology minister Galla Aruna Kumari, TTD chairman K Bapiraju, Tirupati MP Chinta Mohan, Nizamabad MP Madhu Yaskhi, Vijayawada MP Lagadapati Rajagopal, Tirupati MLA K Chiranjeevi described the newly opened PSKs as a boon to people of the state.
Comments
0 comment