There will soon be a Seva Kendra in every Lok Sabha constituency where there is no Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) or Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK).
New Delhi: Soon there will be a Seva Kendra in every Lok Sabha constituency — where there is no Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) or Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) — as the Ministry of External Affairs signed an agreement for the second phase of the Passport Seva Programme (PSP-V2.0) with Tata Consultancy Services. As of now, there are 93 PSKs, 428 POPSKs and 36 Passport Offices are operational. The Programme has recently been connected to more than 176 Indian Missions/Posts through Global Passport Seva Programme (GPSP), providing “seamless” delivery of passport services to the Indian diaspora, the ministry said.
The PSP-V2.0 is a continuation and enhancement of PSP-V1.0, an e-Governance instrument, which introduced “unprecedented transformation” in delivery of passport-related services to citizens, the ministry added. The key elements of PSP-V2.0 are setting up a state-of-art digital ecosystem, process overhauling and integration among various stakeholders and databases, improving citizen interface, upgrading technology, adopting best practices and strengthening data security.
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Security aspects, including strategic assets such as data centres, database and the application software will be owned by the government. There would be strict access controls across the system, incorporating biometrics. On the digital front, the programme envisages a Data Centre, Disaster Recovery Centre and Government Secure Repository networked to all PSKs/POPSKs, Passport Offices and also to Indian Missions/Posts abroad, an electronic file system for passport processing running across the passport issuance ecosystem and 24x7x365 monitoring and supervision through state-of-art Network Operation Centre (NOC) and Security Operation Centre (SOC).
According to the ministry, the Passport Seva Programme would be embarking on technology upgrade with the use of biometrics, artificial intelligence, advance data analytics, chat-bot, auto-response, natural language processing, cloud enablement. “The issuance of e-Passports for enhanced customer satisfaction, increased security and next level of citizen experience will also be unveiled in the upgraded PSP-V2.0.”
What are the various passport services and which form has to be filled in?
The various passport services are –
- Issue of Fresh Passport: You can apply for fresh passport if applying for the first time in the applied category
- Re-issue of Passport: You can apply for re-issue of passport if you want another passport in lieu of an existing passport for any of the following reasons:
- Change in existing personal particulars
- Validity expired within 3 years/ Due to expire within one year
- Validity expired more than 3 years ago
- Exhaustion of pages
- Damaged passport
- Lost passport
The applicant must apply under fresh category, in case they did not hold previously any Ordinary Passport, even if they currently hold Official/Diplomatic Passport.
The applicants for Official/Diplomatic Passport must apply under fresh category in case they did not hold previously any Official/Diplomatic Passport, even if they currently hold Ordinary Passport.
