e-Business

PASSPORT SEVA PROJECT

Agenda
From Offline to Online
Passport Seva Project
The Model
Salient Features
Benefits
Application Procedure
Ensuring Safety

Why from offline to online

A common mans faces:
Uncooperative staff
Long waiting queues
Unruly crowds
Touts waiting outside the office
Passport still takes at least a month to be delivered
Number of passports issued went up 2.2 times between 1997
to 2007
The demand would go up to 1 crore by 2012
Considerable strain on manpower and infrastructure,
Inevitable delays
Growing need to make available services like:
o Real-time online tracking of status of applications
o An effective enquiry and grievance redressal system
o Digital photo capture
o Biometric passports

Passport Seva Project

VISION: To deliver passport services to citizens in a timely, transparent,
more accessible, reliable manner and in a comfortable environment through
streamlined processes and committed, trained and motivated workforce

The project was conceived in 2006

Indian government decided to launch the ambitious Passport
Seva Project in 2008
Project launched under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP)
The objective behind the project is to deliver services:
Timely
Transparent
Accessible
Reliable
Comfortable environment
Following the cabinets approval of the project through an open
tender process, TCS was selected as the service provider of
the project for a sum of Rs 1000 crores

The model
The project is being implemented in Public Private Partnership
mode
TCS makes the investments upfront on:
All non-strategic infrastructure
Software development
Training
Change management
Citizen Interface
TCS meanwhile would be paid on a quarterly basis by the MEA after
fulfilling the twenty-eight SLAs
MEA would be involved in:
Building applications
Setting up secure data centers
Disaster recovery centers
Call centres for applicants
Government would continue to exercise all sovereign and security
related functions

Salient Features
Creation of an all India:
Data center
Disaster recovery center
Networking between all passport offices
Electronic file system for passport processing
The entire data including personal information would be
residing in the data centre and the disaster recovery centre
of MEA under its Project Management Unit
Aim:
Computerization of passport application collection centres
Provision for authenticated e-mail services
Communication between various offices through
authenticated e-mail
Electronic storage and retrieval of documents
Complete tracking of all applications

Working Model
Online
Web Portal

Web
Server

Application
Server

Infrastructure will be
set up by TCS
Actual Business logic
MEA
Verification to be done
by same officials

Database

Main Data
Center
Disaster
Recovery
Center in
Chennai
STPI- 30 Cr
5 years

CALL CENTER FOR INFORMATION, GRIEVANCE RESOLUTION

Architecture

Architecture (2)

Infrastructure
Core Infrastructure
o National eGovernment Intranet ( NICNET, ERNET and other
service providers)
o State wide Intranets
o National eGovernment Data Center
o State Data Centers
o Security Infrastructure
o Resource Centre for E-Governance (PKI etc)
o GIS National Spatial Data Infrastructure
o Language Resource Centre

Dr B.N. Shetty
Senior Technical Director & HOD
Because of user doubts,we decided to introduce computerization module
by module, office by office

Benefits
ITEM
Time taken for Tatkaal
Passport.
Time taken for Normal
Passport.
Public dealing hours per
working day

OLD SYSTEM

NEW SYSTEM

7 to 14 days

1day

30 to 45 days

3 days

24

Will be expanded in
keeping with growing
demand
Difficult to monitor across Complete digital signatures
Accountability of employees the country in a manual
trail for each issuance
system
process
Effective through national
Information for applicants
Only through website
call centres and internet
Grievance handling through
service level phone, on-line
Limited
Immediate
& mail.
80% manual involving
Paperwork
100% on computers
paperwork
Exchange of information
By post - time consuming
On-line
with police
Wide range of information
Management Information
Limited
available to management
System
Scope for expansion of
passport outlets/counters

Limited
Could be time consuming

The application procedure

Ensuring Safety
The entire system of Passport Seva will comply with ISO 27001
Selected service provider will have to comply with security provisions at all
the three key levels i.e. User level, Application/Data Centre level, and
Network/Transport level
The ownership and strategic control of the core and critical assets of the
project i.e. Passport application software, system software and Data Centre
would be with the Ministry of External Affairs
MEA has appointed the Standard Testing and Quality Control Directorate
(STQC) of the Department of Information & Technology to conduct a
comprehensive third party security audit
The access to data, data storage media and Passport system will be regulated
and monitored very strictly by the (Project Management Unit) PMU/ (Special
Purpose Vehicle) SPV

Thank You