Challenge
An overwhelming demand for passports had put a strain on the resources of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India.
India’s rapidly expanding middle class and rising economy had led to a growing demand for passport services. This put a massive strain on the Ministry of External Affairs’ limited infrastructure, legacy systems, and human resources. Citizens had to deal with inconvenient and cumbersome processes, limited passport offices, and long turnaround times. Despite attempts to automate operations, decentralize the collection of applications, open new passport offices, and introduce organizational reforms, operations could not reach the desired scale. Traditional manual processes made passport service delivery prone to errors and inordinate delays.
Solution
TCS provided a scalable technology platform for transparent and efficient passport services.
Supporting India’s national e-governance plan, TCS helped the Ministry reimagine their existing system and transform passport services. Launched under the public-private-partnership (PPP) model, TCS executed the project under the build-operate-own-transfer (BOOT) framework.
While the Ministry handles all the sovereign functions, TCS sets and manages the Passport Seva Kendras (facilitation centers), IT and non-IT infrastructure, end-to-end core passport application, networking, portal, data center, and disaster recovery operations.
TCS delivers services to citizens from 93 Passport Seva Kendras located in 63 cities across India. In addition, TCS, along with the Ministry, conceptualized and co-created a new service delivery model of Post Office Passport Seva Kendras – a model that leverages India’s vast network of post offices across the length and breadth of the country.
So far, TCS has integrated over 440 Post Office Passport Seva Kendras with the Passport Seva system, delivering passport services to citizens in not just India’s tier 1 and tier 2 cities but mofussil regions as well. The service has been extended to some 180 Indian missions and embassies overseas making it a single global system on a common platform that connects the global Indian diaspora.
With TCS at the helm of the Passport Seva Program, the Indian passport issuance process has undergone a remarkable transformation. What once took an average of 45 days is now streamlined to just eight days for applications submitted at Passport Seva Kendras. This includes efficient backend operations and faster police verification processes, which currently take an average of 18 days to complete.
Managing over 15 million applications annually and processing approximately 65,000 passports daily, the Passport Seva Program has become a benchmark for e-governance.
“The Passport Seva Project, administered by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, has tried to simplify the availability of passport services to Indian citizens across the globe. TCS has been a reliable partner of MEA in this endeavor in establishing a citizen-friendly application system supported by robust IT infrastructure, and managed and maintained by it on a 24X7 basis. The high quality of services delivered from the state-of-the-art Passport Seva Kendras set up by TCS, where TCS staff work together with MEA officials, has been recognized globally,” said Shri Prabhat Kumar, IFS, Joint Secretary (Passport Seva Program) and Chief Passport Officer of India.
The transformation also saw the design of a toll-free call center that offers support in 17 languages nationwide. TCS also manages the overall physical and technical scalability of the infrastructure and operations.
As part of this mammoth transformation, multiple stakeholders were integrated, processes re-engineered for faster throughput, and change management administered for officials at various levels.
A dedicated team of more than 2,500 TCS associates continues to offer quality-led services with an unwavering focus on bringing in efficiency and transparency to the process. In recognition of this service transformation that visibly improved a public service, the Passport Seva Program has been conferred several awards and accolades in India and overseas.
Today, TCS provides a scalable technology platform for passport services to over 1.42 billion Indian citizens, including 35 million citizens living overseas.
“PSP (Passport Seva Program) is a new benchmark in e-governance and is considered a laudable achievement for a digital India. We appreciate and congratulate TCS for their contribution. We value our relationship with TCS.”
Shri Prabhat Kumar, IFS, Joint Secretary (Passport Seva Program) and Chief Passport Officer of India
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