E-Governance News: 8/9/09

TCS TO ROLL OUT PASSPORT SEVA PROJECT IN OCTOBER
Preeti Parashar, Chandigarh
The Financial Express

Leading IT services, business solutions and outsourcing firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) plans to roll out passport seva project in six cities by October. The passport seva centers will be launched in Chandigarh, Ambala and Ludhiana in North and Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli in South in the first phase. One of the central government’s flagship e-governance programmes- Passport Seva Project was handed over to TCS for implementation in October 2008 by the ministry of external affairs.

However, this Rs 1,000 crore prestigious project is running behind schedule. “The project had to begin in July this year but delay was caused due to non availability of disaster management recovery site. But now the work is on and infrastructure will be in place by September,” Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice president and head government industry solutions unit, TCS said.

TCS will be recruiting about 75-80 people for three centers in north and about 1,600 people are expected to be hired for the total of 77 centers. Chakrabarty added, “The pilot locations will be observed for three months and then the next phase operations will be carried out by July 2010.

National rollout will take place over a period of six years. Once the passport seva kendras are fully operational the applicant can have a passport within 72 hours.

B’LORE GETS UNIQUE ID TECH CENTRE
Ajith Athrady, New Delhi
Deccan Herald

Considering the availability of a large pool of technocrats in Bangalore, the Centre has decided to establish the technology centre of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) in the IT capital of the country.

This decision was taken at a recent high-level meeting of the authority chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and attended by chairman Nandan Nilekani and several Union cabinet ministers. Though the size of the office and its staff strength are yet to be decided, it is learnt that it will be a huge establishment considering its mammoth task.

The government has sanctioned Rs 120 crore for the project as initial budget to create infrastructure and other facilities. The government plans to roll out the first unique identification number in mid-2011 and aims to cover 600 million people within four years.

As the authority has already chosen Karnataka for the pilot implementation of its project and appointed senior IAS officer M N Vidyashankar its state’s nodal officer, the technology centre in Bangalore is expected to result in better co-ordination, sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The authority’s headquarters will be New Delhi and it will have eight regional offices whose locations are being identified, sources said.

Taking note of the contours of the project and the requirement of the massive talent to implement it, the meeting decided to allow the authority to hire people from government as well as private sector. The authority was allowed to hire professionals from persons of Indian origin. The authority will constitute a global advisory council of top academics of Indian origin to advise it on technology and implementation issues