Aurangabad, Feb 24:
Hundreds of citizens desirous to seek passports have expressed their displeasure over the non-functioning of the Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) to its full capacity. They demanded the Regional Passport Office (RPO) to intervene and restore the operations like it was during the pre-Covid-19 situation.
Under Mission Begin Again, the POPSK resumed its functioning from December 1, 2020. Till February 23, 2021, the centre had recorded transactions (scrutinised and processed) of more than 1400 applications.
When contacted the verification officer at POPSK, P P Mohite said, " We are taking all precautionary measures and following Covid-19 guidelines strictly at the office. We are functioning as per the guidelines of our head office (RPO) in Mumbai."
Appointment of April
According to reliable sources, " POPSK is a joint venture of RPO and Department of Post (DoP). The RPO (Mumbai) had sealed token limits to all the POPSKs in Maharashtra to 40 in the post-Covid-19 situation. The limitation is indeed posing a severe inconvenience to applicants applying for the passports. Earlier, the token limit of Aurangabad POPSK was 200. Due to the limitation of token numbers, the appointment till March is full. Few days ago, the appointment for the month of April is available online."
The sources added the absence of the lease line and poor internet connectivity at POPSK (as it is situated in the Cantonment Area) are also the core issues of POPSK.
Demand to start POPSK in full capacity!
The president of Aurangabad Tourism Development Foundation (ATDF), Jaswant Singh explained that the closure of POPSK was posing severe inconvenience to the citizens. Many of them had to visit Nasik or Mumbai for submitting the applications. It was waste of time, money and energy.
" The POSPK is not functioning to its previous capacity in the post-Covid-19 situation. Earlier, there was a daily limit of 200 tokens (issued against applications) which had been reduced to 40. The RPO should intervene and start functioning the POPSK to its full capacity with all standard operating procedures (SOP) in place, on priority," claimed the ATDF president.
1400 applications processed in the last two months
According to the senior superintendent of posts (SSP, Aurangabad) G Shivanagaraju, " The staff of POPSK comprises of two personnel of DoP and one official from RPO. The centre had resumed its functioning with SOP in place. It had recorded transactions (scrutinised and processed) of more than 1400 applications from December 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021. The allotment of slots or limitation of the token is decided by RPO-Mumbai."
The SSP, however, refuted the claim (of 200 token limits) saying the average of clearing the forms was not more than 100 in the past two financial years at our POPSK.