Malappuram: Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahmad yesterday announced that only those who have not cleared their Class 10 will be required to get emigration clearance.
"It has also been decided that henceforth passports will not have the page which asks for emigration clearance. Instead, the law would become applicable that all those who don't have a Class 10 qualification will have to get the emigration clearance," Ahmad said at a function to inaugurate the fourth passport office in Kerala.
According to current rules, all applicants who did not have the Class 12 qualification had to take an emigration clearance before being allowed to go abroad.
Kerala already has passport offices at Kozhikode, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. There are 1.8 million non-resident Keralites abroad, majority of them in Gulf countries. The demand for a passport office at Malappuram has been a long-standing one.
"With the new office, the waiting period for getting a new passport would come down drastically," said Ahmad. Later, addressing reporters, the minister said that in the first phase, e-passports would be given to diplomats and officials from 2007. It would be given to others too.
"We have also decided that there would be a regional passport office at all state headquarters. New passport offices would be opened at Shimla, Dehradun, Raipur and Amritsar this year. We have also planned passport offices at Coimbatore and Madurai," he said.
