Extending Outreach of Passport Services through Network of Post Offices
The Passport Seva Project (PSP), an ambitious Mission Mode Project of
the Government of India, is being successfully run in the Public Private
Partnership (PPP) mode as part of the National e-Governance Plan. It
has emerged as one of the most noticeable statutory and citizen-centric
services being rendered by the Government. M/s Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS) is the Service Provider for the PSP.
At present, 89 Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) with best-in-class amenities
are operating across the country as extended arms of the 38 Passport
Offices, thus providing extended reach to passport applicants. Several
quantitative and qualitative improvements in the delivery of passport
services in the country have been made during the last two and a half
years.
Over the years, there has been an expansion in the volume of passport
related services. Government of India rendered 1.15 crore passport and
other related services during the calendar year 2016.
The Ministry of External Affairs has engaged closely with the Police
Departments across States/ Union Territories to reduce the time taken in
completion of Police Verification Report (PVR) for expeditious issuance
of Passports. The Department of Posts has been a valuable partner of
the Ministry of External Affairs in the PSP by ensuring timely despatch
and delivery of the passports from the Passport Offices to the
registered address of the passport applicants.
In order to streamline, liberalize and ease the process of issue of
passport, the Ministry of External Affairs has made several changes
towards the end of last year in the realm of passport policy which is
expected to benefit the citizens of India applying for a passport. It is
expected that these changes in the Passport Rules would further ease
the process for passport applicants in getting their passports.
The objective of the Government has been to cater to the demand for
passports and to reach out to the people located far away from the
Passport Offices. One approach has been to open PSK at various locations
and under this, the Government has decided to inaugurate additional
four PSK at Indore in Madhya Pradesh, Udaipur in Rajasthan, Siliguri in
West Bengal and Sholapur in Maharashtra in the coming months. A second
approach has been to organize Passport Seva Camps at various locations.
During 2016, 80 such Camps have been organized at various locations
across the country in which 34,111 passport applications were processed.
In order to extend passport services to
our citizens on a larger scale and to ensure wider area coverage, the
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Department of Posts (DOP)
have now agreed to utilize the Head Post Offices (HPO) in the various
States as Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) for delivering
passport related services to the citizens of our country. The pilot
projects for this joint venture between MEA and DOP would be inaugurated
on 25 January, 2017 at the HPO at Mysuru in Karnataka and at Dahod in
Gujarat. Appointments for passport applicants have been released for
these two places beginning 25 January, 2017. Applicants, who apply for
their passports online through the passport portal, can now schedule an
appointment and then visit the designated POPSK to complete the
formalities akin to those at the PSK necessary prior to the issue of the
passport.
Delivery of passport related services through the POPSK would be yet
another citizen-centric measure of the Government in taking IT- driven
public services closer to the people of the country. This partnership
would be an important step forward enabling the Government to continue
to deliver passport related services to the citizens in a timely,
transparent, more accessible, and reliable manner through streamlined
processes and a committed, trained and motivated workforce.
Once the pilot projects are operationalized successfully, the Government
intends to scale up this programme by opening POPSK in all the HPO in a
phased manner.
