MoEA outsources passport facilitation to TCS

In a bid to speed up and simplify facilitation and turn around time of passport delivery, Ministry of External Affairs (MoEA) has outsourced passport facilitation to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). TCS will provide technology and backend support to the MoEA. However, authorisation/issuing of passports will be done at the Regional Passport Office (RPO) of the city. TCS will collect and verify documents from the applicants and forward it to the RPO for police verification and issuance of passport. The outsourcing of passport facilitation will help the MoEA in improving the turn around time of passport delivery, maintain a database of passport holders, help in moving towards issuing biometric passports and have more transparent functionality in availing passports. Currently, India does not offer biometric passports for its nationals. Biometric passports are available only for diplomats. According to the sources in the industry, the pilot project of outsourcing passport facilitation has already commenced in Bengaluru and Chandigarh