Pachaiyyapas boys don new roles

CHENNAI: There was a time when visitors to the Regional Passport Office at Shastri Bhavan in Chennai would never return home without painful experiences. Whether it was due to the paucity of workers or a complete breakdown of the system, the passport applicants were forced to run from pillar to post even for small clarifications, not to speak of shelling out thousands of rupees to the touts for a hassle free process.But all that could soon be a thing of the past. The authorities at the Regional Passport Office have brought about a new change, engaging volunteers of the National Cadet Corps (NCC) from Pachaiyappa’s College to assist the hundreds of applicants thronging Shastri Bhavan everyday for the same purpose.The youth adorned in khaki uniforms guide the people to reach respective counters, besides regulating the queue. On top of this, they extend helping hands by arranging the necessary documents in the stipulated order with the application forms — a key responsibility assigned to the students.“We are trained to arrange the documents in a proper order,” Arun Pandian, a second year Chemistry student from the Pachiyappa’s College said. “Generally people bring appropriate documents, though they won’t be in the respective order. Only in a few cases the documents would be lacking something,” he added.Presently, five students are being roped in for the services between 8.30am and 1pm. The NCC cadets claim that almost every visitor to the Regional Passport Office approach them for assistance with different queries. “People don’t want to wait in the queue. They are serious about rushing to finish the formalities as soon as possible,” Yuvaraj, another NCC student observed.The students have been on duty for about a week and would be replaced with other students in the coming days, in turns. Commenting about the new system, an official in the Regional Passport Office underlined the need for utilising the services of the student community, instead of contracting the services. If private labourers are working for a considerable period, there are possibilities, this could be used for unholy purposes. Hence, we chose the students, who can be relied upon,” the official added.