As a result, Tuesday onwards applications will not be received at the existing passport office in Jaipur. The MEA, in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), would issue new passports within three working days and a ‘tatkal’ one the same day. While the new scheme would certainly be helpful with reduced work load at the passport office, this scheme would greatly benefit those who would not require police verification. This would include government servants, minors and passport renewal cases.
“In ordinary cases too, this would speed up the process as the entire process including police verification would be made online. General applicants would be able to apply at the speed post centres only till Monday. Thereafter, the post offices and district passport cells where these centres will open, will not accept applications. Now the passport application form also will be different in a new format,” said S K Verma, passport officer, Jaipur. The new system includes enabling applicants to file online applications using the Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR)-enabled forms, which along with the relevant documents that can be scanned and submitted at the passport facilitation centres.
The project is one of the largest e-governance projects under the National e-Governance Plan(NeGP) for streamlining the passport services.
According to the contract, TCS is to set up additional 77 passport centres and also upgrade the existing 37 passport offices in the country. The project is to strictly comply with the ISO 27001 standards at all the three levels: user level, application and data centre level and network level.
