Ahmedabad, Nov 20: Majority of passport applicants
in India still prefer to seek agents' help in processing
application forms, despite an online access to passport
offices, a study conducted by the Indian Institute of
Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) said.
"Most passport applicants, irrespective of the mode of
application, prefer to engage an intermediary/agent to help in
getting their application processed," an IIM-A report on
'Impact Assessment of eGovernance Projects' stated.
The impact study is a part of the National eGovernance
Program (NeGP), DIT.
"It includes a systematic study of mature e-government
projects implemented by state and central agencies across
India," IIM-A professor Subhash Bhatnagar, who led the study,
said.
"Around 23 percent of the online users and 28 percent
of the offline users mentioned agents as the best source of
information," the report stated.
"Only 17 percent of the respondents had used the online
services for registration of applications, fixing appointments
with regional passport offices (RPOs), submission of
application forms or checking the status of their
applications," report added.
There was a 75 percent rise in total number of passport
applications in five years, from 2.6 million in 2000 to 4.5
million in 2006, the report said.
Computerisation of passport offices was initiated in 1989
by GoI, and subsequently it was extended across India.
The survey involved eleven market research agencies that
gathered data from 26,000 respondents spread over nearly
800 locations in 12 states from the north, south, east and
west of India.
However, passport offices have not been very successful
in creating awareness about the online services, it revealed.
It was observed that none of the sampled regional
passport offices have any hoarding or banner or any other way of
informing applicants about the website or the availability of
online services, the report stated.
Users of the passport website suggested that guidelines
provided on the website should be made clear and specific so
that even persons with lower comfort level in using computers
could access online services.
Bureau Report