Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Two Passport Seva Kendras in Tiruchi


Two Passport Seva Kendras, one at Thillai Nagar in Tiruchi and the other in Thanjavur, would be opened by the end of June. These facilities are part of the Centre's initiative to deliver passport services to citizens in a timely, transparent and reliable manner.

Work is under way on establishing the two kendras. “They will be citizen-oriented and paperless offices, offering speedy passport services in a comfortable ambience,” K. Balamurugan, Regional Passport Officer, Tiruchi, told The Hindu. Tata Consultancy Services would handle the front-end services such as receiving the applications, photographing and collecting the biometric details of the applicants at the kendras. However, all decision making processes would be carried out by passport office employees and officers. About 20 to 25 staff of the Regional Passport Office would be deputed to each of the kendras.

A training programme for the employees was under way at the Regional Passport Office. Employees were being trained by a TCS team on the use of new software and other processes. Mr. Balamurugan clarified that all data collected through the kendras, such as personal particulars of applicants, would remain secure with the Ministry.

The help desk at the kendras would have two-way monitors so that applicants could verify their personal particulars and make corrections if any.
Requests for police verifications would be sent online, to the offices of the Superintendents of Police to start with.

The police could also upload the verification certificates online and forward the hard copy later. In a phased manner, the online system of police verification would be extended to the level of Inspectors of Police.


Applicants would continue to register their applications online. On registration, an application reference number would be generated. Currently, they were asked to appear on a particular date for payment of fees and submission of documents at the passport office. Under the new system, the applicants could choose the date and time slot for their appearance, depending on the availability.

There would be no jurisdictional limits and applicants could choose to appear in any of the kendras.
The kendras would offer all passport-related services including issue of passports, renewal and other miscellaneous services.

Toll-free lines for offering assistance to the public were also on the anvil.
Mr.Balamurugan said that the district passport centres (DPCs) at the district headquarters would continue to function in order to avoid overcrowding at the kendras. They could be phased out gradually, he indicated. Once the system was in place, the Regional Passport Office could become more of a back office handling only complicated cases.

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