Haj pilgrims issued passports with eight-month validity

The first passport with eight-month validity to a Haj pilgrim from Tamil Nadu was issued here on Monday.
Deputy Passport Officer K S Daulat Thameem told TOI that most Haj pilgrims had applied much in advance and received the police verification report.

A few days ago, the government decided to waive the police verification for Haj pilgrims so that the issuance of temporary passports became less time-consuming. The decision came after two high-level meetings in the wake of Saudi Arabia's decision on the issue.
"The passports will be issued for eight months without a police verification within 15 days," a top Haj Committee of India official said.
The official said those wanting to convert these into permanent passports would have to go through the process of police verification later. He said pilgrims who had already submitted their application forms and whose police verification was pending till June 20, would get passports.
A circular to all Regional Passport Offices from the Ministry of External Affairs, said: "We will need to issue passports to all genuine Haj applicants (those having the Haj Committee's cover number and those travelling under the private operators' quota of 45,000 provided they furnish the necessary proof by August 13, 2010.)
The circular further said passport offices could gear up to issue all regular passports where police verification report had been received by giving it priority and in cases where PVR was not received upto July 31, the restricted eight-month validity passport may be given.