agnelo fernandes is always up for a challenge when he took over as regional passport officer this very month two years ago the passport office was nothing short of chaos with cases pending by the thousands for six months foregoing weekends and public holidays he and his staff toiled performing the herculean task of bringing the pending cases down to zero the most complicated ones were tackled first today the office functions smoothly and he ensures online appointments can be secured within 24 hours a large number of applicants vying for portuguese passports visit the office to get a fresh indian passport issued their old passport reissued and finally their indian passport surrendered from surgeons to school dropouts and elderly parents in wheel chairs dragged from old age homes to get their names corrected on their passports for their childrens sake fernandes has seen it all they all think the streets of london are paved with gold he says there are those who talk aggressively in highpitched voices trying to push through their fake educational certificates fernandes sees through them asks them to tone down and sends their documents for verification the louder they protest the more i suspect their documents he says many a genuine case too evokes humour when he asked a young lady to correct the name on her fathers passport before proceeding with her own she told him he had passed away some years ago well wheres the passport now we need it to which she let out a groan we put it in his suit pocket when we buried him fernandes career goes back many years though he traces his roots to the island of st estevam in goa he was born and raised in mumbai studied at the seminary and later at st xaviers college he moved to goa in 1990 and before joining government service continued to study and pick up a host of skills he began working for an english daily as a subeditor whilst pursuing his bachelors degree in law llb at v m salgaocar college in miramar from there he went on to work as a junior labour law consultant and later as an administrator at sharada mandir school in panaji the hotel line appealed to him and he joined whispering palms beach resort in candolim and later majorda beach resort where he worked as personnel manager his stint at majorda beach resort changed his life as it was here that he met cynthia who would become his future wife he answered the goa public service commission examination and gave up an offer to join the ramada hotel when he got a call from the government he chose to answer the examination in marathi much to everyones surprise as a goan catholic speaking and writing in fluent marathi he was praised his first posting was at ponda municipality in 1996 and he stayed on for seven years serving as joint mamlatdar mamlatdar and finally chief officer his work then took