Passport check: Karnataka police to use tabs

Bengaluru: As trial runs continue at five police stations in the city to look at the feasibility of the online Police Verification App, Passport Office officials’ are hopeful it would soon be a reality and beneficial to all.

"It will help all stakeholders, as it cuts down the time taken for the police verification. Once we initiate a police verification, the request will go straight into the tablet and only one or two police persons identified for the job would be able to access it. They would get all the personal particulars on the tablet itself," said P S Karthigeyan, Regional Passport Officer (RPO). He was hopeful the the tablet would soon be rolled out for the police in a couple of weeks.

"I am looking at two weeks but it might take longer. However, in the trial runs at the five police stations we have been informed that the police verification time has been reduced by more than 50 per cent."

The average police verification time is 26 days across Karnataka. In Bengaluru  it is slightly better -- about  21 -22 days. "But, we can bring it down to seven days with this app," said Karthigeyan.

He further said that 108 tablets have already been purchased by the police. "The questionnaire is already in the app and all the police official needs to do is tick the questionnaire. He can also take pictures of documents and upload them on the App itself," he said.

Another interesting feature is the ability to track the latitude and longitude of the field policemen using GPS to ensure that the cops verify the address by actually visiting the location. "The cop has a GPS-enabled tablet and he can capture the coordinates of the location as well," the RPO said.