Tata Consultancy Services, which has been appointed by the Centre to implement the ‘Passport Seva Project’, stated that implementation of the project at six pilot locations has been delayed because the ministry of external affairs did not make available the Disaster Recovery Site. The IT major hopes to roll out the project at the six pilot locations by October this year.
The project envisages launching computerised passport facilitation centres at six pilot locations including Chandigarh, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli in the initial phase. Following this, similar centres would be opened in 77 locations across the country by June 2010.
The Centre last year awarded the Passport Seva Project on BOT (Build Own Transfer) basis to TCS for speeding up the delivery of passports. Under this project, passports would be issued in three working days and under the ‘Tatkal’ scheme, they would be issued on the same day.
TCS offers its IT services to governments for achieving Intra government efficiency, improving services to citizens, treasury automation and fiscal revenue augmentation.