Chandigarh:  With the trial run of e-Passport centres beginning at Chandigarh, Ambala and Ludhiana, the central government has set the ball rolling for the implementation of an ambitious project of computerised passport service centres across the country.

With an aim to streamline the issuance of passports, the central government plans to open around 77 such centres in various states. The existing 37 regional passport centres will act as headquarters for the new centres.

 “In the first phase, three states in the north and three in the south have been identified for establishing the centres. In the south, new passport centres have started functioning in Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli. Three in the north have been recently set up and the trial run has begun,” Ministry of External Affairs Joint Secretary A Manickam said.

The seven pilot projects are being run for three months and in the meantime, the government is finalising the list of states where other centres need to come up.

The Rs 1,000 crore projects will be implemented on a build-own-operate and transfer model made by TCS.

These new fully computerised centres will not only provide online access to applications to Indian citizens, but also de-clog the overburdened passport centres that process the millions of applications every year.

These new centres will ensure an applicant gets a passport within three days of applying and within 24 hours under the Tatkal scheme, Manickam added.

To make people aware of the new system, the government has published advertisements in various medium asking them to fill applications online.

While the government rolls out the new system, old applications will be processed through the existing system.

The menace of fake passports will also be curbed as finger prints of the applicants will be procured at the centres so that one applicant is issued only one passport.

STQC, which is Department of Information and Technology’s third-party audit agency, is testing the new project in relation to the security concerns.
—iGovernment Bureau