The e-passport programme, rolled out by the ministry of external affairs and TCS, has delivered on its promise, though some glitches still need to be ironed out. Shivani Shinde finds out what is working well, what isn’t and what it means for TCS.
Ten years ago, Meghna Sharma, a media professional, stood in a slow-moving queue for six hours to submit her documents for a passport. The experience was harrowing. There was no help around. She could have escaped the drudgery had she engaged a tout, but he had asked for Rs 4,000. Recently, Sharma, now 36, had to get her passport renewed. Memories of the earlier experience sent a shiver down her spine. But she was pleasantly surprised when she went to one of the three Passport Seva Kendras, or PSKs, in Mumbai. The process was over in an hour’s time. The place was neat, the staff was helpful and there was a clean bathroom too. “The best part of this system,” she says, “is that I can track the movement of my passport (on the net) and know how much time it will take for police verification.”
At a time when most government programmes are running behind schedule, the epassport scheme is on target. The target of 77 PSKs across the country has been met. Last week, these PSKs received 120,279 applications and handed out 101,216 passports. Government officers say this is a significant jump in numbers from a year ago, though it is difficult to tell by how much. It is a part of the National e-Governance Plan, and its second-largest component after Aadhar, the unique identity project. And it is an example of a successful public-private partnership.
In 2010, Tata Consultancy Services bagged the Rs 1,000-crore project from the ministry of external affairs, or MEA. This included developing the software application, managing the technology back-bone, call centres, and change management. Unlike the other projects it had undertaken so far, TCS here was also responsible for setting up the PSKs and managing them as well. The pilot for the project went live in April 2010 with seven PSKs, and by the end of July this year, all 77 were up and running.
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Muktesh K Pardeshi, joint secretary in MEA and the chief passport officer, draws satisfaction from the delight he sees on the faces of the people who walk into the PSKs. These are swankier than the older passport offices. Other than a large air-conditioned waiting room, each PSK has a cafeteria, clean bathrooms and even a changing room for babies. “How many government offices or public places can boast of such a changing room? We have made sure that each PSK has such facilities,” says Pardeshi.
It has brought about transparency in the process. “The reason I say the system is transparent is because there is no physical download of the file once the details are digitally uploaded. The only place where it is downloaded physically is the police station where they need to give a file in case the applicant is in a remote location or the police station has not been digitised,” says Pardeshi. He hopes that in the next five years there will be no physical exchange of files once all the police stations have been digitised. The entire process is online and streamlined including interface with the police authorities for verification of personal particulars of applicants and with India Post for tracking the delivery of passports.
The system also promotes accountability. Every file (once it is uploaded), the status of the application (whether held over or cleared), and all the movements (of the file) are mapped along with the details of the officer in charge. “Earlier 10-15 per cent of the applications would be awaiting clearance due to incomplete information. Now there are hardly any,” says Pardeshi. The e-passport process also has the potential to bring down duplication and instances of fake passports. It is essential now for the applicants to present themselves at the PSK to enable the authorities to obtain their photographs and fingerprints to prevent the incidence of impersonation. The applicants get the opportunity to see and affirm their particulars to be entered in the passport to avoid unnecessary correspondence later. This has also meant that there is no room now for touts and agents. To make sure that the project adheres to all the rules, each milestone has been audited by an independent third party: The Standardisation, Testing & Quality Certification under the department of information technology.
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The work inside the PSKs is done by people drawn from TCS as well as the government. The first level is managed by TCS, which includes non-sensitive tasks such as checking the demographic data, scanning and uploading supporting documents, taking the applicants’ photograph and biometrics and accept application fees on behalf of the government. All these details are simultaneously digitised. Then the government staff takes over. This includes verifying the documents and granting a passport. The last part of the process is police verification. The moment the granting officer decides that an applicant is eligible to be given the passport, the file is immediately forwarded to the police department.
Naturally, this has caused friction. In Chandigarh, five employees of the passport office tonsured to demand government control over the software that was being developed to issue epassports. In yet another instance, passport employees struck work on several occasions. Their demands included parity in salary structure, opposing privatisation of passport system, and increasing workload among others.
Pardeshi says the PSKs are short of staff: “The total employee strength at the departmental level is 2,700. We do have some vacancies.” TCS, in comparision, has deployed 3,000 people on the project. But Pardeshi also knows that change management has been tough: “It was known that it will be difficult for employees to work with a private services provider under the same roof. It was an unfamiliar territory. They had to be trained constantly. But people have now accepted the change.”
The difference in the work cultures is stark at the PSKs. While the TCS employees are 25 to 30 years of age, the average age of the government employees is above 40. “I think the working environment has improved. We have launched a performance-linked (incentive) scheme of up to Rs 1.2 lakh per annum. We have laid out the procedure for this. One will have to increase productivity to be eligible for this. And this is applicable retrospectively,” says Pardeshi. Of course, TCS has had to contend with other cold vibes as well — it, along with MEA, is fighting cases in various courts filed by businesses that got impacted by the e-passport programme (largely travel agents).
The pressure point is police verification. Several applicants complain that the verification continues to be a tedious process and tracking the passport's movement has also become cumbersome. Pardeshi agrees that the system needs to be much more efficient. “If the police can submit their report in 21 days, we can give a passport within four weeks. It also depends on the locality of a police station,” says he. “Kolkata has a huge demand for passports and hence some of the police stations have a backlog of files. But then there are cities in West Bengal where the demand is not high and the verification happens quickly. In Karnataka, police departments are digitised, so the delays are manageable. In our pilot in Karnataka, we saw that an application can be digitally accesses till the thana.”
Some feel the time spent in PSKs is still too long. One reason is the “no shows”. When the initial roll-out had happened, middle men and touts would take multiple reservations on fake names and clog the system. Once it was made compulsory for the applicant to be present during the filing, bogus fillings came down sharply. “The national average of no-show is 30 per cent. We want to reduce this as it will help us better serve the citizen. We plan to shortly allow people to make passport payment online. This could be either through net banking, credit/debit cards or chalans. We feel that once someone pays for this service the chances of showing up at the PSK are more,” says Pardeshi. The no-show numbers have gone down also because the government has allowed walk-in interviews for senior citizens and mothers with toddlers.
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TCS was not just creating a technology platform but also had to put upfront investment in setting up these PSKs. According to the agreement of the project, the PSKs need to be in commercial places that have easy access to public services like transport, safety and accessibility. The service provider also had to pay the rent for all the real estate. All this has made it an expensive proposition. “To meet the deadline we also reduced the time taken for construction to 75 days from the usual 90 days,” says Pardeshi. In addition to training its own people, TCS also had to put the government officers — MEA as well as the police — through the paces. In return for its services, TCS gets paid up to Rs 199 per passport. This year, over 8 million passports are expected to be issued. This could result in an income of almost Rs 160 crore for TCS — enough to break even?
The profit & loss statement of the project is not in the public domain and TCS does not disclose the numbers. But N Chandrasekaran, the CEO and managing director of TCS, admits that the deal is financially a bit stressful for TCS. “I do believe that the system still needs to be stabilised. But even then we have been able to make getting a passport a simple and normal process. I also believe that MEA has played a crucial role to see that we pull through this.” Still, Chandrasekaran feels that TCS will always like to be part of such large deals. “I personally think that some of the large societal problems that we have can be solved only with technology. Projects such as this have an immense opportunity for the country and the government.”
