Jammu: The issue of pendency of passports due to "failure" of the state intelligence rocked the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Monday with legislators from various parties demanding time-bound verification and issuance of the travel document.
Shortly after the Question Hour in the Legislative Assembly, Mir Saifullah of NC and GA Mir of Congress and other PDP members raised the issue of "huge pendency" of passports to people due to "failure of the state intelligence (CID) in giving verification reports in time-bound manner and also denial of such reports".
"Despite being an MLA it took me eight months to get the passport. This is the condition of an MLA, what about the common people," Saifullah said. The MLAs called for time-bound verification and issuance of passports even to the kiths and kins of those involved in militancy.
Amid noisy scenes and uproar, the legislators alleged that government was not implementing its assurances and policies concerning the issue.

Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone said verification was necessary for all including MLAs but it should be in a time-bound manner.
Minister of State for Home, Nasir Aslam Wani said, "There is a huge increase in the number of applications for grant of passports. Another problem is the multiple addresses in the applications and it takes a lot of time for verification and this has created a lot of backlog."
PTI