Visakhapatnam: Some 10 to 15 per cent of the over 2.2 lakh passport applications filed in a year at the Visakhapatnam Regional Passport Office either come with fake birth certificates or false address details. This is despite the awareness drives that we-re undertaken in the past.
There are very many cases of applicants submitting the papers with fake birth certificate and incorrect residential address. Not only illiterates and those who do not have computer literacy, but students too are taking the help of wayward agents and similar people for filing their applications and get from them forged birth certificates for passport.
The passport office in Vizag, which caters to the north and central coastal districts of AP from Srikakulam to Guntur, besides Yanam of Puducherry, has received a total of 2,25,225 passport applications in 2016. However, passport officials have issued only 2,15,383 passports, and rej-ected several applications on various grounds in 2015.
In 2015, the passport off-ice received 22,6109 applications and issued 2,20,168 passports. As per norms, passport applicants born after January 26, 1989, have to submit their birth certificate issued by the Register of Birth and Deaths (RBD) to get the passport. But some applicants under this category are not possessing the birth certificate issued by RBD, and are approaching agents to obtain fake date of birth certificate for pas-sport, says Passport Offic-er of Vizag, NLP Choudary.
Recently, the city police arrested seven persons including a panchayat secretary and data entry operator of Dharmavaram Pa-nchayat in Vizianagaram district for making fake birth certificates and selling fake date-of-birth certificate to passport applicants at Rs 3,000 to Rs 5,000.
Saying that the fake documents are a serious menace in processing of passport applications, Mr Choudary said some municipal officials were also involved in making fabricated documents and they have lodged a complaint with the city police chief.
Apart from fake birth certificates, thousands of passport applications from students doing courses like engineering and management are pending, as the applicants have not properly furnished their addresses or have provided false address details.
Sources said that in the coming days, passport officials would block the application of those furnishing false details and impose penalties ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000.
