Privatising passport services serious risk: Nathwani

As a move against privatising passport servises Parimal Nathwani, an independent member of the Rajya Sabha from Jharkhand has written to the prime minister, the home minister and the minister of external affairs, expressing concern over such an action posing serious potential security risk to the nation.

Nathwani, who is also President of Corporate Affairs in Reliance Industries Ltd, has cautioned against the step to privatise certain important services relating to the issue of passports in the country for expeditious disposal of passport applications at the cost of national security. The letter states that while expeditious disposal of passport applications for the benefit of the public is at large welcome, it is imperative to examine vulnerability of such an action as it poses serious potential security risk to the country.

The government has initiated a process to invite requests for proposal (RPFP) bids. Government of India has 33 regional passport offices and 15 collection centres where applications for passports are received and processed. The letter says that the government is considering development of software through a foreign IT firm. The private service provider will render initial processing services like biometric impression of the applicants, verification of the application, approval of passport, renewal services etc, except the sovereign functions of the government.

According to Nathwani, in that case, the private service provider will have an access to the database which is under the control of NIC at present. This will be a major threat to the security not only of the individuals but also of the nation.

The letter further says that passport is the most important document of a citizen and terrorists and anti-national elements normally use this too for concealing their true identity.

Fake and forged passports create a major impediment in the investigation of a crime. Allowing the privatisation of certain services and access to the data of the passport to private agencies will expose the entire system to greater risks, he says.

The letter urges the government to explore other ways to improve efficiency of the system without involving private service provider in this sensitive sector. He also suggests considering an increase in the number of offices and manpower for expediting disposal of passport applications without compromising on various checks and verifications rather than exposing huge cyber data to alien private firms and making the people and system vulnerable.