Anyone who has ever had their passport issued in India would know what a painstaking procedure it is. Not only does it require a lot of paperwork, but it also requires a police verification process which is usually the most tedious and time consuming one. The latest news that comes from the Indian Government is that police verification for passports will soon be a thing of the past.
The confirmation comes via Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, who told the Press Trust of India that police verification for passports would be replaced with the CCTNS Project. For those of you wondering what that is, it stands for the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems project. This is said to replace police verification in a years’ time and this process will soon go online.
Rajiv Mehrishi told reporters, “Police in some states are already using CCTNS for passport credentials. Police will be given hand-held devices to go to an applicant’s address and his or her details will be uploaded with the network. It will minimize contact with police and reduce time”
CCTNS connects over 15,300 police stations all over the country and will create one national database of crime and criminals. The CCTNS was launched earlier today by Home Minister Rajnath Singh. It is a central digital police portal which will help make it much easier to track crime rates and identify criminals. This CCTNS verification would soon replace the physical police verification for passports in India.
With police verification for passports being put to rest, it would make the process online, faster and much more convenient for the users applying for a passport. However the government must take care as this is a double edged sword and this may lead to fraudulent activities and fake passports if not treated with extreme caution.
