Ahmedabad RPO issues 33% more passports in 2021

AHMEDABAD: With Covid lockdown being lifted by several countries last year, students and those looking to work abroad made a beeline for the passport office. This led to a 33% rise in passports issued by the Regional Passport Office Ahmedabad in 2021, as compared to 2020. The RPO issued 3.19 lakh passports in 2020, which rose to 4.23 lakh in 2021.

Wren Mishra, regional passport officer Ahmedabad, said, “The demand has risen mainly due to youths, especially students.Applicants seeking passport for work-related travel is more than those who want it for tourism purpose.”
Mishra said that despite restrictions during the second wave, the staff was on their toes as the office was functioning with Covid protocols in place throughout the year.
He added, “Despite several employees being tested positive in the second wave, the office remained open. We got people from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra as Ahmedabad was among the few passport offices in the country that were operational during the time.
“To speed up clearance, the RPO office in Ahmedabad observed only one holiday every month and this helped to clear more applications.”
Senior superintendent Harish Malani said, “The number of applications rose from August.
Since then, RPO Ahmedabad received more than 40,000 applications. Most of these were submitted by students. Applications of renewal of passports were also high.”
The officials said that in the first seven months, the RPO received 2.14 lakh applications. In the remaining five months, it got 2.17 lakh applications. In all, 4.33 lakh applications were received and 4.23 lakh were cleared.
The officials said that during March, April and May, those applying for passports were mainly tourists who wanted to go on a foreign vacation, while those applying in in July and August were those wanting to go abroad for studies.
Officials said that during May, due to the outbreak of the second wave, there were only 11,454 applications.
“In April and May 2020, we got only 18 applications,” said officials.
The officials added, “We issued 6.97 lakh passports in 2019. A lot of them were issued for tourism purpose. We got more than 60,000 applications in January, April, May and July. From July, we began receiving more application from students.”