Beed(Mah), Aug 13: Several people from Beed have been forced to postpone their plans to go abroad as nearly 400 applicants from the district are awaiting issuance of their passports for the last three months, an official said today.

There has been a delay in the issuance of passports despite all procedures being completed here because of shortage of blank passport booklets at the Mumbai office, a district passport officer said.

Because of the shortage of booklets being supplied to the Mumbai office from the India Security Press in Nashik, the applicants of Beed are facing the delay, he said.

A person here has to apply in the district passport office, but since January 2013, the passports are being issued from Mumbai, he said. An applicant has to go to Mumbai for completing the formalities, but since there has been a delay in issuance of passports, the number of applicants here has also gone down, he said.

Last year, 2,100 people from Beed applied for passport. From January to July this year, there were 1,500 applicants, the officer said. However, the Mumbai office has been issuing passports under the tatkal category, he added.

PTI