Hyderabad: With Hyderabad being the joint capital of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh for a period of 10 years, the Regional Passport Office (RPO) in Hyderabad will continue to issue passports for applicants from both states.
Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh also has a passport office serving the needs of five north coastal districts —West Godavari, East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Srikakulam and Prakasam.
The Visakhapatnam office, may thus be asked to cater to the needs of AP in the coming years.
Applicants can continue to submit forms in any passport seva kendra in the two States.
The first passport in the new state of Telangana was issued on June 2. Passport officials said the software automatically changed ‘Andhra Pradesh, India’ to ‘Telangana, India’ on the last page of the booklet.
New passports replacing AP with Telangana will be issued for residents of Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Adilabad, Khammam, Medak, Mahbubnagar and Nalgonda districts.
There are currently five passport seva kendras (PSKs) in Telangana —three in Hyderabad (Ameerpet, Begumpet and Tolichowki), and one each in Nizamabad and Karimnagar. A mini PSK also functions in Karimnagar district.
Keeping in mind the bifurcation of the state, the ministry of external affairs recently posted N.L.P. Chowdhary, a senior MEA official, as regional passport officer, Visakhapatnam.
The PSKs in AP are located in Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati.
Efforts are on to open a mini PSK in Bheemavaram, in West Godavari district.
