Govt agencies fail to streamline Documentation services

Post floods

  

  Passport, ATM and Driving License applications keep piling up  

PS BALI

Jammu, Nov 7: In yet another embarrassment to the state government, many departments have failed to fully resume     functioning, even after passage of two months since rains and flash floods ravaged the state.

Certain government departments in the state are yet to resume hassle-free documentation services exposing the people to lot of problems  .

Due to floods in Kashmir, the issuance of important documents viz Passport, Driving Licenses and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards is on halt, wherein the concerned officials claim that the supply has been affected because of communication problem, which state faced in September.

The Regional Transport Office has been running short of cards for the past two months, due to which the applicants, who had applied for new license or for the renewal of older are  highly disappionted.

A group of drivers maintained that they have applied for the renewal of license three months back before floods in Kashmir, but till date officials at the RTO department evade their queries on the pretext of shortage of cards.

“We have been told that the cards are not available in the office and are ordered from Kashmir. We have not taken our vehicles on road, due to lack of documents,” said the drivers, adding that RTO has also not issued any substitute for the same, so that drivers could ply vehicles in the absence of proper license.

Talking to Greater Kashmir, Regional Transport Officer (RTO), Arvind Kotwal admitted that the department is running short of Cards. He said, “Due to prevailing condition in Kashmir, the issuance of license cards is on hold. Things are improving and we will soon start issuing cards,” said Kotwal, adding that for those drivers who want to take their vehicle on roads, “They can come to my office and collect authority letter,” said RTO, Jammu.

Similarly, at Passport office, several applicants rued that passport officials are making excuse of Kashmir floods for delay. “It’s been more than a year and officials are saying that processing is taking time because, due to floods in Kashmir several backlog cases are pending,” said Mohammad Arif Lone. He added that earlier he was told that his passport would be ready by September.

He alleged that concerned authorities have made Kashmir floods a pretext, despite the fact that regional passport office of Srinagar was temporarily shifted to Jammu to avoid damage and hindrances in processing.

People also complained about Banks, saying that banks have been harassing customers by not issuing ATM cards. Scores of customers lamented that before restoring ATMs, the concerned authorities would have solved the problem of damaged ATM cards.

When contacted PRO, JK bank, Anil Sharma, said that earlier there was a problem of communication in Kashmir due to which several cases of ATM remain pending, but now “We have restored processing of ATM cards and many backlog cases had been cleared, while processing on rest of the cards is expedited,” he said.