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Eight districts of Andhra Pradesh state - Anantapur, Chittoor, Kadapa, Kurnool, Nellore, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam are shifted to the Visakhapatnam passport office jurisdiction from Hyderabad Regional Passport Office. With this move all the 13 districts of AP will come under the purview of Vishakapatnam passport office.
"The MEA will officially announce transfer of eight districts to the Visakhapatnam passport office soon," regional passport officer, Hyderabad, Ashwini Sattaru said at a media conference on Thursday in Hyderabad.
Interestingly, the RPO Hyderabad topped in the list of issuing the highest number of passports in the country in 2014. Of 7,17,769 applications received, the RPO had issued 6,97,156 passports. Which may not be possible in the future to overtake it’s record as the jurisdiction has got reduced. In the achievement, Mahabubnagar district in Telangana was top in clearing police verification certificates in eight days, while it was Krishna district in AP, with six days.
"The MEA had targeted to issue 6.75 lakh passports. By December, we have issued 6.87 lakh passports. The revenue, which we have generated through passport fee, for 2014 was Rs 113 crore," the RPO said.
The decision would also transfer Vijayawada and Tirupati passport seva kendras, which currently working under the RPO, Hyderabad, to Visakhapatnam passport office. As of now, Vijayanagaram, East Godavari, West Godavari, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam were being covered by the Visakhapatnam passport office, which had opened in January, 1997, she said.
-Kannamsai
