Jalandhar Regional Passport Office has become the first passport office in India to launch passport status service through mobile SMS, on Thursday, right from submitting the passport till the delivery of the same to the applicant.Addressing a press conference in Jalandhar, the Regional Passport Officer, Perneet Singh said that by launching this service, supported by National Informatics Centre (NIC), Jalandhar, illegal activities of the unauthorized travel agents will be curbed and more transparency and accountability in issuing the passports in time will be maintained.To avail this totally free service, the applicant has to register himself once after submitting the passport application by sending his file number through SMS to –99884-37900–and the applicant will start getting information about the status of his application at every stage till he receives the same. However, this service is available for new passports only bearing the numbers P, Z and C.Perneet Singh said that in future, the service would be expanded for knowing the status of renewal of passports also.