It should be noted that www.KishanganBihar.com had already reported in December that Passport services shall start in Purnea shortly https://kishanganj.blogspot.in/2016/12/passport-office-in-purnea.html . Now the news is confirmed with the announcement made by Union Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley in Budget Speech on Wednesday, 1st February, 2017.
The people of the region of Seemanchal comprises of districts Kishanganj, Purnea, Katihar, Araria and a couple of other districts are somehow disappointed with the Union Budget 2017 presented by the Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley on 1st February, 2017. However, the people of Purnea division got a reason to smile in this budget as the finance minister made the announcement about the start of passport services from the head offices of each district. Accordingly, the people of Kishanganj, Katihar, Araria and Purnea may now get their passport shortly from the Head Post Office of Purnea.
In the budget speech Mr. Jaitley specifically mentioned that "Our citizens in far flung regions of the country find it difficult to obtain passports and redress passport related grievances. We have decided to utilise head post offices as front offices for rendering passport services," he said.
In fact, this decision was announced on January 25 by minister of state for external affairs VK Singh and his counterpart in the telecom ministry Manoj Sinha. Secretary (CPV) D Mulay had then said, "This is for the first time minister of external affairs will be formally giving the powers under Passport Act to the post office. It's a unique feature where one ministry is giving the power to another ministry to act on its behalf, so in a sense postal officers will actually be exercising powers under the Passport Act." The MEA will train post office officials in passport services.
