“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.