Roof collapses in new passport office, housed in century-old Muzaffarnagar post office building

MUZAFFARNAGAR: A huge chunk of the roof of Passport Seva Kendra , housed in the century-old district post office building, collapsed in the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.

The incident came to light when officials opened the office on Friday morning.


According to them, the debris had fallen on the section of the room designated as visitors’ waiting area, and that if the accident had taken place in daytime, it could have had tragic consequences.

The passport office was inaugurated in January within the premises of the old district post office building, which, though had been renovated some months ago. The ceiling collapse littered debris and damaged power supply lines, disconnecting the office and equipment and forcing it to be shut down. Up to 60 applicants visit the passport office every day.

According to Ranjan Kumar, in-charge of the Passport Seva Kendra, “We’re unable to operate our systems and biometric machine, so work has completely stopped. We’ve informed our seniors in Ghaziabad and Delhi about the incident.”

The passport office staff appeared concerned about the condition of the building. Post office in-charge Dinesh Arya told TOI he didn’t know much about the building’s past except that it is very old, but that he’d already visited it and informed his superiors about the incident.