People wait outside the passport office in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 23: Sweating out in serpentine queues be fore the Regional Passport Office (RPO) may soon be a thing of the past.

A new Passport Seva Kendra (PSK), slated to come up in the capital, will make the process of issuing a passport faster and easier. From biometrics to 24-hour call centres, the kendra will offer all facilities to ensure speedy delivery of a passport.

Tatkal processing of passports, with police verification, will take three days under the new system as opposed to seven to 14 days it takes at present.

The system will also provide status updates via SMS and e-mail.

This will be the third such centre to come up in the country after Bangalore and Chandigarh. It’s part of the Ministry of Eternal Affairs’ Passport Seva project that aims to launch 77 PSKs in the country.

“With an ever-increasing demand for passports, delivering services to the citizens in a timely and reliable manner is the need of the hour,” said passport officer Padma Mohanti.

The RPO here provides passport services to the entire state of Orissa covering 30 districts and 32 police districts with a population of approximately four crore.

Currently, it issues 250 passports a day. Taking into account the growth rate, the numbers may rise by 500 or more in the next five years.

The total number of passports issued by the RPO in 2008 was 50,000, which is nearly 9,000 more than the previous year.

The numbers are expected to touch 57,000 by the end of this year. This represents a year-on-year growth of 17 per cent, Mohanti said.

The new centre will be an extension of the RPO but will function from an independent campus.

“We are yet to decide on the site,” said Mohanti, adding that the kendra is expected to come up by February 2011. Applicants will have to spend a shorter time at the office as they can fill the applications online. Biometrics and photographs will be captured at the centre itself.

Front office operations of the centre has been outsourced to IT major Tata Consultancy Services, which would receive applications, check them and scan all relevant documents. However, Mohanti said the sovereign functions of the delivery process will be andled by the passport office staff.