After the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) started the trial run of ‘Version 2’ (V2) software at its Nagpur Regional Passport Office (RPO) from April 1, many citizens in Nagpur and its neighboring districts have been facing problems in getting their new passports issued. However, Tatkal passports, which do not go through the police verification and cost 3,500 per applicant, were getting issued.
Now, even these have stopped for the last three days due to a software glitch in the Passport Seva website.
A Nagpur RPO official admitted that Tatkal bookings were not available on the Passport Seva website. “We hope to address this problem in a day or two,” he said. Replying to a query, he said that in absence of online bookings, physical sub- mission was not being allowed at the RPO.
This has created extreme discontent among passport applicants.