The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Department of Posts (DOP) announced on 24 January, 2017 their decision to utilize the Head Post Offices (HPO) in the various States as Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) for delivering passport related services to the citizens of our country. The objective of this partnership is to extend passport services on a larger scale and to ensure wider area coverage.
The pilot projects for this joint venture between MEA and DOP was inaugurated on 25 January, 2017 at the HPO at Mysuru in Karnataka by Shri Ananth Kumar, Minister for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs; and at the Post Office at Dahod in Gujarat by Gen (Retd.) Dr. V.K.Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, and Shri Jaswantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs, Government of India. The POPSK at these two places have been running successfully since their inauguration. One hundred appointments are being released every day for each of these POPSK.
With the successful operationalization of these two pilot projects, the Government has now decided to scale up this programme by opening 56 POPSKs at the following places in the first batch of expansion:
| Locations | State | Passport Office |
| 1. Kurnool 2. Kadappa | Andhra Pradesh | Vishakhapatnam |
| 3. Silchar | Assam | Guwahati |
| 4. Purnia, 5. Gopalganj 6. Muzaffarpur 7. Bhagalpur 8. Siwan | Bihar | Patna |
| 9. Surguja | Chhattisgarh | Raipur |
| 10.Daman | Daman | Mumbai |
| 11. Diu | Diu | Ahmedabad |
| 12. Silvasa | Dadra & Nagar Haveli | Mumbai |
| 13. East Delhi, 14. Noth East Delhi, 15. North West Delhi 16. South Delhi 17. West Delhi | Delhi | Delhi |
| 18. Bhuj 19. Palanpur | Gujarat | Ahmedabad |
| 20. Hisar 21. Karnal | Haryana | Chandigarh |
| 22. Faridabad | Delhi | |
| 23. Palampur 24. Hamirpur | Himachal Pradesh | Shimla |
| 25. Leh 26. Udhampur | J&K | Srinagar |
| 27. Jamshedpur | Jharkhand | Ranchi |
| 28. Dhanbad 29. Deoghar | ||
| 30. Belgaum 31. Devangere 32. Hassan 33. Gulbarga | Karnataka | Bengaluru |
| 34. Pathanamthitta | Kerala | Trivandrum |
| 35. Kasargod | Kozhikode | |
| 36. Kavaratti | Lakshadweep | Cochin |
| 37. Gwalior 38. Satna 39. Jabalpur 40. Vidisha | Madhya Pradesh | Bhopal |
| 41. Rourkela 42. Sambalpur 43. Koraput | Odisha | Bhubaneshwar |
| 44. Kota 45. Jaisalmer 46. Jhunjhunu 47. Bikaner 48. Jhalawar | Rajasthan | Jaipur |
| 49. Salem | Tamil Nadu | Coimbatore |
| 50. Vellore | Chennai | |
| 51. Mehbubnagar 52. Warangal | Telangana | Hyderabad |
| 53. Asansol 54. Nadia 55. North Dinajpur 56. North Kolkata | West Bengal | Kolkata |
MEA and DOP are working closely for the early commencement of passport related services at the above mentioned POPSK. Once fully functional, applicants who apply for their passports on-line through the Passport Portal will be able to schedule an appointment at the above POPSK to complete the formalities necessary prior to the issue of the passport.
Following the liberalization of passport policies announced on 23 December, 2016, we have seen nearly 30% surge in demand for passports. For example, a record number of 53,400 applications were processed on 7.2.2017 out of which 49,259 were fresh applications. This is the highest since the commencement of the Passport Seva Project. Our Passport Offices are conducting special Passport Melas during the weekends to cater to the increasing demand for passports.
The pilot projects of the Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSK) have been running successfully at Mysuru and Dahod. We have been releasing 100 appointments for Mysuru and Dahod POPSK per day with cent per cent utilization. Appointments for Mysuru are now available in ten days while at Dahod it is available the next day.
These are clear indicators that the liberalization of the passport policies and opening of the POPSK have been successful efforts of the Government that have been welcomed by our citizens. We expect that opening of these additional POPSK would further help our citizens in getting passports easily.
PIB
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