Bhubaneswar: Thousands of passport applicants are left to fend for themselves as a severe technical glitch in the software has affected the processing of online applications at the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Bhubaneswar, according to sources.
Alleging inaction by the passport officials, several applicants have claimed that they have been encountering a technical issue in the Passport Seva Portal for the last three months. Although a few applicants have already made distress calls to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), apart from posting on X by tagging the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the issue remains unresolved.
A senior official at the RPO, who wished not to be named, attributed the delay in processing of applications to a snag in the updated version of the software – Passport seva programme 2.0. The software was recently launched on a pilot basis in Bhubaneswar and Nagpur to ensure seamless workflow, the official mentioned.
He also said, “The issue, mainly, is due to transfer of data from old software to the new one, causing frequent crashes in the latter. This creates a hurdles in the processes related to passport renewal, issuance of fresh passports and retrieving the old data of passport applicants for verification. Technical teams have been roped in for quick resolution to the issue.”
Following the issue, the appointment slots at RPO, Bhubaneswar have declined to nearly one-fifth. Raseswar Sahoo, a resident of Burla, said he urgently required a passport before Julyend, to apply for an upcoming seminar in Berlin, scheduled for August 18-24, but his application got suspended abruptly.
“When I lodged my complaint through the toll-free number, my application got reinstated. However, when I wanted to book appointment slot on the portal, it showed that no slot is available for the next three months.” It’s appalling and also strange that every other RPO in the country has vacant appointment slots despite scores of applications being processed there on a daily basis, except for the one here, he added. Echoing similar concerns, Manmath Tripathy, a Bhubaneswar resident, said his application has been stuck in police station for nearly four months due to a technical snag from the RPO.
DEBADURLLAV HARICHANDAN, OP