PUNE, Nov 23: Thanks to an acute shortage of forms in the city for over three months now, a passport form which costs just three rupees is being sold at over thirty times its price.

In fact stern measures by the Mumbai-based passport office to curb malpractices have resulted in virtual disappearance of passport forms at the main head post offices in the city, with even several travel agents reporting their inability to cater to the irate customers' demands. While travel offices like Asiatic, Travel Corporation of India (TCI) and Travel House among others have felt the acute shortage, their offices in Mumbai managed to send them a handful of forms.

But again, that's for their corporate clientele, as Fatima Lokhandwala of Asiatic stresses, `we don't cater to walk-ins'.

Manik Bidkar who supervises the passport counter at TCI too grimaces as the shortage at the GPO has rather affected them and they too rely on their counterparts in Mumbai to send them forms.

Senior Post Master at the GPO R H Darekar grumbles that as against the demand of nearly 5000 forms, the supply has been very limited with forms getting exhausted soon. According to S R Karwande, Post Master at the Shivajinagar office said that they had been supplied with a large number of forms which over the past few months have sold like hot cakes. The other main branches including city and other important offices at Deccan Gymkhana and Chinchwad have totally exhausted whatever limited supply was sent from the Kolhapur postal store depot. ``The depot has informed us that they have not received any supply from the passport office at Mumbai. Nearly 200-500 forms are sent to the post office here. However we have plenty of renewal forms available,'' says Darekar who does not deny the innumerable queries that the GPO has to tackle regarding the non-availability of passport forms.

Postmaster General Asha Kulkarni however insists that they had been regularly asking the passport office at Mumbai to supply the forms.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.