JEDDAH — The Consulate General of India will organize an open forum to correct the errors and anomalies in passports, according to Mohammed Noor Rahman Sheikh, consul general of India. “Indian expatriates will have the opportunity to correct the errors that happened in their passports during the past five years,” he said during a meeting with a delegation of the leaders of the Overseas Indian Cultural Congress (OICC).
The forum will be conducted, in cooperation with the volunteer organizations, on a weekend holiday at the consulate premises, Sheikh said. The delegation met the consul general to draw his attention to several difficulties faced by members of the Indian community due to anomalies in passports.
Sheikh said that efforts would be made to sort out all issues related with passport at the open forum. “There will also be an awareness program with regard to what legal measures are to be taken to solve various problems pertaining to passport,” he added.
The OICC leaders pointed out that there are difficulties for the renewal of passports due to some trivial errors or mistakes. They cited several examples of temporary passports being issued on the ground that the required report had not obtained from India.
A large number of expatriates are being exploited by the unscrupulous travel agents and middlemen because of such errors in passports, they said.
The meeting was also attended by Anand Kumar, consul of consular services, Moin Akhtar, consul of community welfare, and Asif Saeed, vice consul of passport. The OICC delegation included K.M. Sharif Kunju, general secretary of OICC’s global committee, K.T.A. Muneer, president of the western regional committee, Zakir Hussain Edavanna, general secretary of the western regional committee, Abbas Chemban and Ali Thekkuthod, members of the global committee.
