EXPLAINER
The new microchip infused e-passports
What is the latest agreement between the MEA and TCS about Indian passports? What can be expected from PSP-V2.0?
Kallol Bhattacherjee
The story so far: The Ministry of
External Affairs on January 7 signed an
agreement with Tata Consultancy
Services Limited for the second phase of
the Passport Seva Programme (PSP), one
of the several Mission Mode Projects
(MMPs) of the Government of India. The
latest agreement will facilitate the next
phase of the PSP termed PSP-V2.0. The $1
billion agreement will focus on faster
delivery of passports to the citizens and
create a more effective integration
between various wings of the
Government like the MEA and the local
police network that can work in harmony
for verification of applicants and quick
tracing in case of emergency situations.
What are the features of the new
passport initiative programme?
The present passport application and
processing continues to involve manual
sections and these are expected to go
digital in the new phase. The Ministry of
External Affairs said that the PSP-V2.0 is a
"continuation and enhancement" of
PSP-V1.0. An official statement said that
the new initiative is aimed at creating a
digital platform that would be
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"transparent, more accessible and
reliable" and that it would be backed by a
trained workforce. This will create a
state-of-the-art digital ecosystem,
overhaul existing processes and integrate
various wings of Government that are
involved in issuance of passports. The
issue of training of the employees in the
new process is however, yet to begin
which is expected to take some time.
What will be the nature of
partnership with TCS?
Tata Consultancy Services according to
the MEA will ensure "support functions"
like "citizen interface, technology
backbone, call centres, training and
change management". The Government
will exercise "all sovereign and security
related functions" in the process of
issuing of passports. Strategic assets like
Data Centres, Database and the
application software will be owned by the
Government and access would be
controlled through biometrics. The
programme also plans to have a Data
Centre, Disaster Recovery Centre and
Government Secure Repository which
would be networked with all the Passport
Seva Kendras and the Post Office Passport
Seva Kendras (POPSK). The overall
system would be connected to all the
Indian diplomatic missions abroad and
will allow monitoring and supervision
through state-of-art Network Operation
Centre, and Security Operation Centre .
“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
Indian diaspora,” said the MEA in a
statement.
The public private partnership
however, is required to address the issue
of shortfall of Government employees in
the passport offices across the country.
The announcement highlighted that the
Government is gearing up for starting
Seva Kendras in all the Lok Sabha
constituencies of the country. But,
according to the employees in the
Passport division, there remain a large
number of vacancies in the Government
positions in these offices and a full
spectrum “monitoring and supervision”
will require more staff members from the
side of the Government. Despite the
Government’s ambitious expansion
programme, these vacancies are yet to be
filled.
What will be the new features of
PSP-V2.0?
The new programme is expected to have
technology upgrade including the use of
latest biometrics technology, Artificial
Intelligence, Advance Data Analytics,
Chat-Bot, Auto-response, Natural
Language Processing, Cloud Enablement.
The newest feature under the PSP-V2.0
will be the issuance of the new
generation of passports called
e-passports. Under this, new and
renewed passports will be fitted with a
microchip that will hold all biometric
information regarding the applicants.
Sanjay Bhattacharyya, Secretary in MEA
in charge of passport services, said in a
social media message that the next gen
e-passports will ease immigration process
across the world and will also increase
digital safety for the passport holders.
How different will e-passports be
from the current passports?
Current passports are scanned at the
immigration counters to reveal the travel
record of the citizen using the same
document and the e-passport is also
expected to perform the same function.
However, unlike the current passports,
the e-passport users will have physical
storage of their biometric data in a chip
which will reduce risk of data leakage.
Is the public private partnership
without any shortcoming?
The MEA-TCS collaboration has been a
part of the passport process since 2008
and has helped in increasing digitisation
of the complex process that requires
multiple stakeholders across the
spectrum of the vast Government
network. However, it is understood that
more harmony between them will help
citizens acquire passports without delays.
THE GIST
B The MEA on January 7
signed an agreement with
TCS for the second phase of
the Passport Seva
Programme (PSP), termed
PSP-V2.0.
B Under this phase, new and
renewed passports will be
fitted with a microchip that
will hold all biometric
information regarding the
applicants. The programme
also plans to have a Data
Centre, Disaster Recovery
Centre and Government
Secure Repository which
would be networked with
all the PSKs and POPSKs.
B The public private
partnership however, should
address the issue of
shortfall of Government
employees in the passport
offices across the country.