Mobile passport app fully secured: Sushma

New Delhi, July 19: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday said the newly launched mobile app through which citizens can apply for a passport was fully secured with advanced security features. She said that in less than three weeks of the app being launched, the External Affairs Ministry (MEA) had rceived as many as 67,500 applications through the app. Replying to a supplementary, she said there was a shortage of staff but it was not affecting the efficiency of passport services. “At 19 Passport Seva Kendras, people are getting appointment as early as the next day of applying. In any case, the wait is not more than seven days. Many more passports are being issued now than ever before,” she said. She said the MEA has done away with a number of “obsolete, impractical and irrelevant” clauses in the passport laws. Questions such as the date of birth of an orphan or the divorce certificate of a woman were no longer required to process the application, she added. (IANS)