The Moneylife campaign to streamline and speed up issuance of passports has resulted in TCS launching an online payment system, which will reduce tout menace as well as absenteeism of applicants who take appointments but do not turn up

In a major step that would reduce absenteeism of around 20% passport applicants per day, who take appointment but do not turn up and prevent alleged block booking of appointments by illegal agents, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the private operator in partnership with the Passport Division of ministry of external affairs (MEA), has launched the online payment system for passport applications.

The company has provided various options for online payment in a very inclusive way as those who are not Internet-savvy have been given the option of depositing money in any of the State Bank of India branches after issuance of the challan online. So, in this case, the appointment would be given upon confirmation of payment by the bank. Otherwise, you can use your credit/debit card for online payment or opt for Internet banking of State Bank of India. Thereafter, the applicant would be automatically given the earliest appointment available.

Once the online payment is introduced in any city, it will be compulsory for the passport applicant to make the payment online. Under this facility, an applicant will be able to cancel/reschedule the appointment only twice within one year of the first appointment date. The system will not allow booking of online appointment for that ARN once two reschedule options are exercised or the first appointment was scheduled more than one year ago.

The press release elaborates: “Under the new process, payments can be made while booking an appointment on the website—www.passportindia.gov.in—either by credit /debit card (both Master and Visa) or internet banking of State Bank of India. Applicants can also use the challan option provided on thewebsite and deposit the money in the State Bank of India (SBI) branch after generating the challan online. In such cases, upon the confirmation of payment receipt by SBI in the online system, applicants can take an appointment.” Further, instead of the applicant choosing the date and time slot of the appointment, the system will automatically give earliest available appointment.

As per the press release, “with the launch of the online payment-based appointments, applicants will be required to make payment at the time of booking the appointment on the MEA website. With this, only genuine applicants will book the appointment and number of no-shows will reduce.”  Clearly, the role of illegal touts who indulge in block bookings, thus denying an appointment to the genuine applicant, would greatly diminish.

The facility, launched in Dehradun in the first week of June, has now been extended to 15 more cities, two days back. These include the Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) of Ahmedabad, Varsha, Rajkot, Vadodra, Surat, Jammu, Srinagar, Guwahati, Saligramam, Tambaram, Aminjikarai, Madurai, Thirunelveli City, Trichy, Thanjavur, Coimbatore, Amritsar, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur. The Online Payment System is already applicable at Dehradun, Chandigarh, Ambala, Ludhiana and Vizag PSKs. Pune and Mumbai would soon be included in this scheme.

According to TCS officials, an average of 20% absenteeism is observed on a daily basis—which means, those applicants who take appointments do not turn up. The press release issued by the MEA states, “Reviewing the operations over the last one year, it was observed that a large number of applicants were not turning up at the PSKs despite taking a valid appointment. This not only resulted in lesser utilization of processing capacity of the PSK, but also caused denial of appointments for other genuine applicants. To resolve the issue of non-availability of appointments and to reduce no-shows of applicants, the ministry has launched the online payment system for booking appointments.”

The new system will be gradually rolled out to all PSKs across the country in coming weeks.

Other improvements in the Passport Seva Project after a successful campaign carried out by Moneylife since March 2013 include:

*Longer working hours to benefit the citizens

* 24X7 Call Center Support in 17 languages

• • Granting decision taken in front of the applicant, therefore greater transparency Citizens leave the PSK with certainty on the status of their application
• • Transparency in the process and online real-time availability of data for ease of monitoring and decision making

For further information, please refer to MEA website – www.passportindia.gov.in or contact the corresponding Regional Passport Office. You may also call up National Passport Call Centre at 1800 258 1800.

(Vinita Deshmukh is the consulting editor of Moneylife, an RTI activist and convener of the Pune Metro Jagruti Abhiyaan. She is the recipient of prestigious awards like the Statesman Award for Rural Reporting which she won twice in 1998 and 2005 and the Chameli Devi Jain award for outstanding media person for her investigation series on Dow Chemicals. She co-authored the book “To The Last Bullet - The Inspiring Story of A Braveheart - Ashok Kamte” with Vinita Kamte and is the author of “The Mighty Fall”.)