The Andhra Pradesh Police Department received an award for the ‘Passport Seva Services’ initiative, from the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (GOI). This initiative was launched by AP Police through the AP Intelligence Department in 2016.
The initiative helps reduce the average time taken to complete police verification of passport applications. It also keeps at bay the manual verification process at the special branch. Announcing the award, AP Director General of Police (DGP), Damodar Gautam Sawang IPS said that the department is equipped with 360-degree access to each applicant’s data, hence reducing the time taken. He added that while the average time taken in the country stands at around seven days, Andhra Pradesh has been completing the verification process in just two to three days.
AP Police Department, since its digital technology adoption, has been at the forefront in verifying applications in the shortest duration possible. Using electronic tablets, the District Special Branch usually carries out the checks and uploads the information. The Intelligence Department collates the received records and sends them to the Regional Passport Office. This seamless integration between the field units and the Intelligence wing helps make Andhra Pradesh’s ’Passport Seva Services’ the fastest passport verification service in the country.
This is not the first time that the AP Police Department has received this award. The State also received this award for the year 2018-2019. Reportedly, during that year, Guntur Urban Police topped the chart for taking just 24 hours for online passport verification. Last year, AP Police had bagged 10 awards at the Digital Technology Sabha Awards 2020.
In 2016, Visakhapatnam Regional Passport Office (RPO) stood third in the country for issuing passports within 15 days. That year, Vizag RPO disbursed over 80 percent of the applications, issuing 2,15,000 passports.
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