PUNE: A prolonged pandemic resulting in air travel and tourism restrictions found reflection through a marked drop in the number of passport verification applications received by the city police this year and also in 2020.
From January 1 to June 15, the police have received only 27,664 such pleas as against 57,695 pleas received in the entirety of 2020. In hindsight, 1.34 lakh applications were received in 2019, police said.
Before 2020, long queues of people outside police stations was a normal sight but these days, people hardly visit police stations for verification purposes, said a constable involved in the passport verification process.
With a majority of people staying back or working from home and many nations having imposed travel restrictions, the need to have a passport seems to have reduced, police said.
The regional passport office moves all the passport applications to the Pune police’s special branch (SB) for verification purposes. The police verify them and return the pleas with their opinion, to the passport office.
Deputy commissioner of police (SB) Mitesh Ghatte said, “Owing to Covid curbs, lack of flights to visit desired destinations, have ensured that people are confined to their homes. As such we have received very few passport verification applications.”
Ghatte said, “The most important factor is that other countries too are fighting the war against Covid and many have suspended the flight operations. Owing to the current situation, there are very slim chances for citizens to visit foreign countries. Thus the number of passport applications is lower.”
Police inspector (SB) Milind Gaikwad said, “There is also a fear of contracting Covid if someone travels within the country or to other countries. Majority of passport applicants want to travel to either European or North American countries. Many countries are cautious about the spread of infection and have suspended international flight operations for now.” Gaikwad added, “At the same time there are very few overseas job opportunities at present.”
