Saturday, July 13, 2019

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Passport office at Vashi for Navi Mumbaikars' that was published in Newsband


Passport office at Vashi for Navi Mumbaikars

Passport Service Centre has started in the premises of Vashi’s Post Office. The inauguration of this Centre was done by Thane District Guardian Minister Eknath Shinde. This place was booked for the Centre before the elections and the bhumi pujan of this place was also done. Three persons were appointed in this passport office. They were two postal assistant and one passport scrutinizing officer. In all, 20 persons will be called to the place for registration purpose and their work will be done. After the registration, within three or four days, their passports will be sent to them by post at their homes. The starting of Postal Passport Service Centre in Vashi, the other places like Panvel, Kalyan, Dombivali, Ambarnath will benefit too. In fact, 25 lakhs residents will benefit. Now the Navi Mumbaikars are saved the trouble of visiting Thane or Mumbai for obtaining passport.
The fact is since last many years the residents of Navi Mumbai were demanding a passport office in their city itself. The efforts along this direction were also being made. But those who were making efforts would fail to achieve success in this matter. When Rajan Vichare became the Member of Parliament, the Central External Affair Minister Sushma Swaraj, on 6 July 2017, visited Thane Loksabha constituency, in Navi Mumbai and Mira-Bhayander, and she was requested through correspondence to start a Passport Service Office in the city.
Those days, the people of Navi Mumbai and Mira-Bhayander would have to come to Thane Passport Office for any passport related work. This consumed a lot of energy and also wasted the residents’ money. It was MP Rajan Vichare who spoke about the woes of Navi Mumbai residents to the then External Affair Minister Sushma Swaraj who promptly sent to MP Rajan Vichare a letter dated 2 February 2018 saying that it was already decided to have passport offices at Pimpri, Aurangabad and Kolhapur in Maharashtra and that now 16 more places will also have passport offices and these 16 places will include Navi Mumbai and Mira-Bhayander in the future. She specifically mentioned Vashi post office in the premises of which Vashi post office would come up. But owing to non-availability of manpower and machinery, MP Rajan Vichare, on 10 May 2019, personally met Chief Passport Officer Arun K Chaterjee and got him to start the passport office at the earliest. Thus MP Rajan Vichare at last met with success.
India is in need of such leaders like MP Rajan Vichare who, single-mindedly and with full devotion to their duties, pursue the issues which are of great public interest. This style of functioning of MP Vichare has earned him victory in the recent Lok Sabha election for the second time in succession. If he continues to play his role as MP in similar fashion even in the future, then don’t be surprised if he will bag a cabinet post at the Centre in the near future.

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