Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Apr 20: With the announcement of the short validity passports for Hajj and Umrah pilgrims by the Centre, people are making beeline outside Passport Office Srinagar and so far 3000 affidavits were filed for these passports in past few days.
This has led to the law and order problem with the police finding it difficult to manage the huge rush of passport seekers outside the Passport Office in Tourist hub of Boulevard on the bank of Dal lake.
Scores of people today held a sit in protest on Boulevard road on the bank of Dal lake and blocked the traffic for about half an hour. Police tried to persuade the protesters to lift the blockade of the road and later agreed for sending a delegation that met the Passport Officer Srinagar, Firdous Iqbal in his office and demanded immediate issuance of passports.
It may be mentioned here that after the announcement of short validity passports for Hajj and Umrah pilgrims people in large numbers are approaching the passport office Srinagar with affidavits for short validity passports.
Firdous Iqbal, told the Excelsior that its office has received 25,000 applications for passports this year and there are large number of applications which needs to be processed. He said that 19, 000 passports were issued by the passport office this year so far. “This month the passport office has issued a record number of 6,000 passports”, he added.
The passport officer said that the passport office has a limited staff and can’t handle so many applications at a time. He said that for the Hajj aspirants the Hajj committee should send a selected list of Hajjis for 2012 Hajj and assured that his office will provide passports to them in short time. He said that this will reduce the burden on the office otherwise everyone is coming to Hajj office for short duration passports resulting in huge rush which is difficult for his office to handle.
“Our office has the daily capacity of only 300 to 350 passports. We want to issue as many passports as we can but we don’t have so much man power,” Iqbal said.
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