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I am planning to travel to Taiwan for a 6-month student exchange program. I need to get a passport within 25 days. To be safe I applied for tatkal passport. No police verification was done. Apparently police verification will happen anytime within the next 6 months.

I heard people saying that their tatkal passport was canceled because they were not in the country when police came to verify their credentials. As a result they had to apply for an emergency passport from the embassy.

Is this an issue? Should I be worried about this?

Under the Tatkaal scheme, passport applications are processed more rapidly than the usual time frames, submitted through Passport Seva Kendra.

While there were anecdotal reports of cancellation of Tatkaal-issued passports while the bearer was abroad, an extant newspaper article suggests it was the consequence of the police findings.

Beginning in January 2018, the Ministry of External Affairs made the process easier, lifting the verification requirement for eligible applicants, which should allay concerns for those using Tatkaal for travel. For those that require verification, the process has been expedited through integrated technology.

Subsequent to the widespread news coverage and a degree of misunderstanding, the Ministry clarified police verification for passports, in response to a question put to it by Parliament:

[T]he Government does not intend to do away with police verification for passports.

Discussions between the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs have been held regarding interfacing the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) with the Passport Seva Project (PSP). This will expedite the process and reduce the time taken in issuance of passport.

The Ministry has taken a number of following innovative measures to minimize the delay in completing police verification process:

1. By digitally integrating District Police Headquarters (DPHQS) with the PSP.


2. The Ministry has launched the mPassport Police App for speedy submission of Police Verification Report (PVR). The App would facilitate the field level verification officers to directly capture the PVR into the system digitally.

With the launch of this App, the need to download and print the physical Personal Particular Form and Questionnaire would no longer be required resulting in paperless end-to-end digital flow of the Police Verification process, further reducing the time required for completion of PVR.