• Passport applicants will now be able to apply for Police Clearance Certificates (PCCs) at all online Post Office Passport Seva Kendras.

• The ministry of external affairs (MEA) is the nodal ministry for the issuance of passports.

• The PCCs are a pre-requisite for the issuance of passports to the applicants.

• Often, the issuance of the PCCs by the local police takes time that results in a delay in the grant of passports.

• To address the unanticipated surge in demand for PCCs, the ministry has decided to include the facility to apply for PCC services at all online Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) across India, starting from September 28.

• This step would significantly add to the availability of PCC appointment slots, and at an earlier date.

• The action taken by the ministry in extending this PCC application facility to POPSKs would not only help Indian citizens seeking employment abroad, but also meet the demand for other PCC requirements, such as in the case of education, long-term visa, emigration, etc.

Passport services

• The Passport Seva Programme (PSP) division of the ministry of external affairs provides passport services in India and abroad. The issuance of passports has emerged as one of the most noticeable statutory and citizen-centric services rendered by the ministry.

• The ministry has been making quantitative and qualitative changes so that passports can be delivered to the citizens in a timely, transparent, more accessible, reliable manner and in a comfortable environment through streamlined processes and by a committed, trained and motivated workforce. 

• Indian passports (together with other travel documents such as Certificate of Identity to Stateless persons, Emergency Certificates for returnees to India, Police Clearance Certificates, Surrender Certificates) are issued by the ministry through the Central Passport Organisation (CPO) and its all-India network of 36 Regional Passport Offices, the Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) Division for diplomatic and official passports, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration.

• This network has been vastly expanded by adding 93 Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode and 428 Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) (in association with the Department of Posts). 

• As on November 30, 2021, the total number of Passport Seva Kendras functioning in the country was 521, including PSKs and POPSKs. For Indians living abroad, passport related services are rendered through Indian Missions/Posts abroad. As many as 176 Indian Missions/Posts have been integrated into the Passport Seva Programme.

Central Passport Organisation

The Central Passport Organisation was created in 1959 as a subordinate office of the ministry and is headed by Joint Secretary and Chief Passport Officer, who also acts as Appellate Authority under the Passports Act, 1967 and the head of department under the Delegation of Financial Powers Rules, 1978.

Criteria for obtaining Indian passport

An application for issue of a passport under the Passports Act, 1967 may be made to a Passport Issuing Authority for which the applicant must fulfil the following criteria:

i) The applicant should be a citizen of India.

ii) The applicant has not been, at any time during the period of five years immediately preceding the date of his application, been convicted by a court in India for any offence involving moral turpitude and sentenced in respect thereof to imprisonment for not less than two years.

iii) Proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by the applicant are not pending before a criminal court in India.

iv) A warrant or summons for the appearance, or a warrant for the arrest, of the applicant has not been issued by a court under any law for the time being in force or that an order prohibiting the departure from India of the applicant has not been made by any such court.

v) The applicant has never applied for/or been granted political asylum by any foreign country.

Diplomatic and official passports are issued to people holding diplomatic status or deputed by the government of India for official duty abroad.

Applying from anywhere in India

An applicant can now apply for a passport from anywhere in India. This initiative has enabled applicants to choose the Passport Office (PO) and thus the desired PSK/POPSK under the PO where they wish to submit their application irrespective of whether the present residential address specified in the application form lies within the jurisdiction of the selected PO or not. 

Police verification is conducted by the police station in whose jurisdiction the address mentioned in the form falls and the passport will also be printed and dispatched at the same address by the PO selected for application submission by the applicant.

Police verification

• Police verification plays an important role in the timely issuance of passports. 

• The ministry engages closely with the police departments across states/Union Territories (UTs) to speed up police verification. 

• The all-India average for the number of days taken to complete the police verification is now 15 days. 

• In 2021, around 87 per cent of the police verifications were completed within 21 days.

• Some states/UTs have consistently maintained low police verification processing times. For example, Himachal Pradesh completes police verification in just two days, Kerala, Odisha and Telangana in four days and Andhra in just five days. 

• The ministry has launched mPassport Police app for end-to-end paperless digital flow. The app has the capability to capture the applicant’s personal particulars and photograph and transmit the same electronically to concerned stakeholders. The app also captures the location coordinates of the applicant’s place of residence, ensuring the authenticity of the field verification by police.

Brief history of passport issuance in India

• There was no practice of issuing Indian passports before World War I. During the War, the government of India enacted Defence of India Act in 1914 and promulgated rules thereunder, which made it compulsory to possess a passport for egress from and ingress into India. 

• The Act expired six months after the end of the War. It was, however, desired that the government of India should retain power to continue that system in whole or in part for the purpose of bringing the Indian practice into line with that of other parts of the erstwhile British Empire and of other countries.

• The government of India, therefore, enacted the Indian Passports Act, 1920 which substantially retained the earlier provisions. This Act was renamed ‘The Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920’.

• Though ‘emigration’ continued as a central subject even after passing of Government of India Act, 1935, the central government delegated to the state governments the power to issue passports on its behalf. 

• Subsequently, the issue of passports became a central subject under the Indian Constitution and was allotted to the ministry of external affairs. Till 1954, this work was continued to be carried out by the respective state governments on behalf of the ministry. 

• It was in 1954, five Regional Passport Offices at Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai and Nagpur were set up. This necessitated the setting up of a separate organisation and the Central Passport Organisation (CPO) was created in 1959 as a subordinate office of the ministry. 

• Up to 1966, the issue of passports was regulated through administrative instructions. The power to issue passports was exercised by the government by virtue of Article 73 read with List I, Item 19 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India. 

• However, as the Parliament was not in session, the government promulgated the Passports Ordinance, 1967 and after six months replaced it with the present Passports Act, 1967,which came into force on June 24, 1967.

• This day is now celebrated as Passport Seva Divas.

• Under the Passports Act, 1967, the central government has the powers to frame rules thereunder. The first such Rules called the Passport Rules, 1967 were thus framed the same year. 

• Following various amendments in course of time, these were consolidated and the Rules were last issued as the Passport Rules 1980 which have been further modified partially.

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