TCS bags Rs 1,000-cr India’s passport digitisation project

[Dinsh]

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a deal with the country’s Ministry of External Affairs for the Passport Seva Project (PSP). In a move aimed at ending the serpentine queues and the long wait in issue of passport, the Government, on Monday, awarded the Rs 1,000-crore ‘Passport Seva Project’ contract, entailing digitisation of the entire passport services, to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

According to the IT company, it will manage the project end-to-end which will be implemented within a buy-own-operate-transfer or BOOT framework with pilot projects operation within 19 months.

After implementation of the project, the ministry expects that the process of issuing a new passport will be completed in three working days while passports issued under the Tatkal scheme will be dispatched on the same day, subject to address and police verification of applicants.

The Tata group said the country-wide roll-out of the project will take place within six years and the government will open 77 passport filing centres across the country in a phased manner.

Bangalore and Chandigarh will be the first to get the new Passport Seva Kendras by March 2009 which would be functional on a pilot basis.

“The construction of IT application would involve 150-200 people, while the passport facilitation centres would have 1,500 people,” Mr Tanmoy Chakrabarty, Vice-President & Head, Government Industry Solutions Unit (ISU), TCS, said.