BY Sameersachdeva, Mumbai, Nov 26 (PTI) The Mumbai Regional Passport Office (RPO) will organize Passport Adalat on December 2 here. The Passport Adalat will be attended by Regional Passport Officer Swati Kulkarni and will settle the matters on the spot. It would be held between 10:30 AM to 01:30 PM at the Regional Passport Old Office in Worli here. "Applicants who have applied for passport before 3 months back and in whose case, police verification or clearance reports have also been received, but still the delivery (of passport) is pending, are eligible to take advantage of the adalat," a statement released by Deputy Passport Officer H T Fulpadia said. Before taking part in the adalat, applicants would have to register their complaints in writing with the passport office or through email at rpo.mumbai@mea.gov.in before Dec 1, and then come to the office at the specified time with original documents," the statement said. The last such adalat was held in May that saw scores of passport applicants avail the services, an officer from the department said, adding, the frequency of such adalats has gone down as the department has adopted a mechanism for speedy delivery of passports. A recent RTI query has found that the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Mumbai has witnessed a rise in the issuance of passports in the last three years. In 2012, a total of 1.50 lakh diplomatic, official, ordinary jumbo and ordinary normal passports were issued by Mumbai Regional Passport office. This number went up to 3.35 lakh in 2013 and further rose to 3.69 lakh in 2014, according to the RTI reply. The Mumbai RPO started functioning in November, 1954. Its jurisdiction extends to the districts and regions of Mumbai, Daman, Beed, Sindhudurg, Aurangabad and Ratnagiri in Maharashtra state. Source: igovernment.in
