Click to play videoNew Delhi: Dreading the long queues at the passport office? Help is finally your way now.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has launched an ambitious new Passport Seva project in concert with Tata Consultancy Services.
“We are attempting to ensure that new passport applicants get a passport in three days. For this to be done we would have 77 Passport Seva Kendras all over the country,” Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon said.
The plan calls for extensive computerisation linking up the passport offices with district police headquarters to facilitate quick verification.
The next step involves outsourcing non-sensitive functions such as issue of passports to private players.
It is hoped this will cut the current 45-days waiting period for a passport to just three days after verification.
Also, it is believed that tatkal passport won't take two weeks and will be issued the same day.
“Security and privacy will be ensured. We will set high security standards, higher than any other passport issuing system in the world today,” Menon said.
If all goes well then MEA hopes to issue as many as 10 million passports beginning 2010 when the new scheme takes off.
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