Employee association panel to visit Passport Seva Kendra at Bangalore
Association to define future strategy after the visit
| March 10 2010
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Samir has over ten years of experience with organizations like TCS, GOI, HCL, NISG , EY. He is working as assistant editor with Governance Now
“A panel consisting of senior MEA officials and employee union will be visiting the passport seva kendra in Bangalore tomorrow to address the concerns of passport employees. “, said Raj Kapoor, president of all India passport employee association to Governance Now. Kapoor added that the association will devise any strategy only after the visit to the centre.
The ministry of external affairs has earlier established a committee consisting of five members of the passport employee association and five from the ministry to look into the concerns of the employees protesting against the privatization of passport offices in the country.
The two pilot passport centres at Bangalore were inspected by the external affairs minister, S.M.Krishna last week.
Government has embarked a mission mode project on e-governance in passport offices under the national e-governance plan (NeGP). The 1000 crore project named the passport seva project (PSP) is being implemented by the IT giant, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Under the initiative TCS will establish 77 passport seva kendras (PSK) across the country with centralized IT system.
The project will transform the passport service delivery system in the country and reduce the time to deliver a passport to three days.
Getting an appointment online still seem to be an issue. It has been 10 days ever since I have applied for passport but could not able to make appointment. The new system, implemened very recently, advises to logon sharply at 6 pm to fix an appointment. When logged on and attempt to schedule the appointment, it displays a message stating no slots are available at the particular PSK and should retry after sometime. Without knowing a deadline, the user has been keep on retrying until he is frustrated for the day. Not sure how this change in the process could be user-friendly in fixing issue for individuals who are eagerly waiting for appointments.
I have already uploaded my application on 15th March, 2010, since then I am unable to get the appointments neither in Tatkal nor Normal. For the past 11 days, I have been in front of the Online System sharply at 7.55 AM and everything is in vain. If I ring to the Toll free number, they are giving irresponsible answers, they are saying you just go on trying you will get appointment. I think these TCS people are not at all capable in maintaining the websites, so my suggestion is to kick them off and the older system, the system of submission through Post Offices has to be broughtdown. This is a great trouble for the public at large. By this appeal I urge the Ministry of External Affairs to solve this problem in hours in the interest of public and large and good conscience.
Same problem...
Booking online appointment for tatkal is so pathetic...Im unable to beleive that TCS is maintaining this PSK portal.
The PSK website is so tricky...the "Select your slot" page just disappears the moment you click on any option. Im trying for the past 1 week...and every day I call the customer care...they say "Keep trying..No other option"!! This is very sad...
I have lost hopes in getting an appointment online, without which I cannot submit my application.
PSK is neither accepting application submission directly nor providing an online appointment!!
What do I do now????!! This is heights of FRUSTRATION!! :(:(
Sir
Namaskar..........
When start TCS Passport Kendras at KERALA State.Is it in JUNE 2011 ?
After TCS has come,if any travels or agency can do the Passport applications directely to RPO OR through TCS only?
Thank you
Paul
Lots of issues with the PSKs even now... major one is the misinformation the front desk at PSK provides....and the different version on the website and helpline.. For every Tatkal application they ask for Annexure 'I' and 'F' without even knowing the rules. I refused to budge from the line and demanded to speak with an officer. They finally called some guy who turned out to be a TCS manager at PSK. He was as clueles and adamant that these are the rules. I told him about what Website and helpline told me but he said our PSK follows this. Unbelievable..how can they have speciic rules for specific PSK. I did write below mail to to their mail ID. Worst part - the feedback/grievance section is so poorly designed that you can't even submit it. I think TCS has put its "BEST" brains behind this portal.
Dear Sir, I applied under Takal for re-issue of an expired passport at PSK, Sai Arcade, Bangalore. The front desk refused to accept my Tatkal application saying BOTH Annex 'I' and Annex 'F' are required for Tatkal. The website (http://passport.gov.in/cpv/TatkalScheme.htm) clearly states that with annexure 'I' you can submit either Annexure 'F' OR 3 of 15 documents specified. I also got the same confirmed from the telephone helpline. I had a Annexure 'I' and the 3 relevant documents, but the front desk just refused saying this PSK follows this rule.
What was even more illogical was that they mentioned if you come with prior online appointment, the Annexure 'F' is not mandatory but for walk-in tatkal appointment it is required. How can a rule be different just because of an online appointment ? If the Annexure is mandatory it should be the same even if you have a fixed appointment. It was distasteful to see misuse of position and lack of information/rules by both PSK staff and TCS representatives. It was very unconvenient for so many applicants who came there and were sent back.Can a specific PSK have its own rules for document requirement ? The TCS staff also had limited knowledge and refused any further clarity. I would sincerely request you to look into this matter.
Hi,
I thought I should share my experience too with others regarding my passport experience as i received it on the 17 th day after I applied for it online…..if they can get some help from it….so I have shared my experience in my blog :
http://yummyfood-khusi.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-passport-experience.html
Dear sir,
I have 40 years experiance in this passport field,iam in tirunelveli,iam seeking job in passport seva Kendra,how can i apply for it and where the office being held.I need a positive replay from ous tcs sir,
Tankyou
kasthuri
Passport seva kendra bangalore is proving to be big inconvenience to people that convenience. I have bitter experience with them. There are lots of issues with new system. Sometimes I feel that old passport processing system at regional passport office wherein people used to directly go to passport office and stand in Q for 3-4 hours was much better than this pathetic "passport seva Kendra". They have following major issues
1) Inconsistency of information provided by website vs customer representatives at toll free number
2) Online booking system has lot of errors.
Issues in online booking of appointment:-I wanted to renew for current passport which is due to expire in Nov 2010 by tatkal scheme. I applied online and wanted to book appointment. On their website, no slot was available in next 2 weeks so I called customer representative. He told me that I can directly walk in to nearest seva Kendra from Bangalore and process application. However, I wanted to double check and called them one more time. Another customer representative told that appointment is must. So I booked date online which was available after 2 weeks ie on 10th of Sept 2010. A funny part starts here. Yesterday at night 7:00 pm I got call from PSK that there is issue in their booking system. It shows that slot is booked but actually it does not book and they asked me to reschedule my appointment to some other day. Now I am trying to find booking slots. There website shows certain timeslots available on 13th, 15th and 20th of Sept but when I try to confirm booking, it throws out errors saying “no slot available”. It seems I have to wait for another couple of weeks to just submit my application!. This is height of stupidity. This is pathetic situation!
Inconsistency of information provided by website vs customer representatives at toll free number
Their customer representatives are not well informed and there is lot of miscommunication which leads pain to common public. I wanted to renew my current passport which is going to expire in Nov 2010 by Tatkal scheme, PSK website shows that only two document required ie “current address proof” if current address is different than in existing passport and current passport. So I submitted online application with only those documents. However, one of the customer representatives of PSK told me that I need Annexure F and Annexure I also required even though current passport is valid and needs renewal. I called again to toll free number and there was a another customer representative who told me that annexure F and I are not required!. I am confused now which is true?
TO MY OPINION, THIS PSK IS REALLY HOPELESS SYSTEM AND CASUE MORE TROUBLE TO PEOPLE AND MAKES THEM MORE FRUSTRTED!
Regds
Avinash Atkar
Mysore
Hi. Facing the same problem. Trying to book tatkaal appointment slots for my parents from last 1 week but everytime there are no slots availabale! the call centre guys told me to log in at 8 am 48hrs before to get the appointment , but everytime its the same problem.. no slots are available! how can there be no tatkaal appointments available? pathetic government service!!!looks like another scam to me..
Dear sirs,
I am very glad that TCS have got project to process applications for the passport services.
There are thousands of application is pending at Ghaziabad. No employee is intrested in answering query at PO; Ghaziabad. They do not attend the calls. Most of the time they are busy in making their personal calls. They delay things and score of people come their daily for simple information wasting their time and fuel.
The computerization in Railways, banks and other public utilities have yielded good results. I hope this will help to clear backlog of thousands of old passport cases applied in Passport offices. May God help Applicants and free from the clutches of GOVT EMPLOYEES.
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