Common Service Centres

CSCs are the access points for delivery of essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, healthcare, financial, education and agriculture services, apart from host of B2C services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country. It is a pan-India network catering to regional, geographic, linguistic and cultural diversity of the country, thus enabling the Government’s mandate of a socially, financially and digitally inclusive society.

Digital India

E-governance initiatives in India took a broader dimension in the mid 1990s for wider sectoral applications with emphasis on citizen-centric services. The major ICT initiatives of the Government included, inter alia, some major projects, such as railway computerization, land record computerisation etc., which focused mainly on the development of information systems. Later on, many states started ambitious individual e-governance projects aimed at providing electronic services to citizens.

Though these e-governance projects were citizen-centric, they could make less than the desired impact due to their limited features. The isolated and less interactive systems revealed major gaps that were thwarting the successful adoption of e-governance along the entire spectrum of governance. They clearly pointed towards the need for a more comprehensive planning and implementation for the infrastructure required to be put in place, interoperability issues to be addressed etc., to establish a more connected government..

Aadhaar Services

UIDAI was created with the objective to issue Unique Identification numbers (UID), named as "Aadhaar", to all residents of India. The UID had to be (a) robust enough to eliminate duplicate and fake identities, and (b) verifiable and authenticable in an easy, cost-effective way. The first UID number was issued on 29 September 2010 to a resident of Nandurbar, Maharashtra. The Authority has so far issued more than 124 crore Aadhaar numbers to the residents of India.

Under the Aadhaar Act 2016, UIDAI is responsible for Aadhaar enrolment and authentication, including operation and management of all stages of Aadhaar life cycle, developing the policy, procedure and system for issuing Aadhaar numbers to individuals and perform authentication and the security of identity information and authentication records of individuals.

PAN Services

Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alphanumeric number, issued in the form of a laminated card, by the Income Tax Department, to any "person" who applies for it or to whom the department allots the number without an application.

PAN enables the department to link all transactions of the "person" with the department. These transactions include tax payments, TDS/TCS credits, returns of income, specified transactions, correspondence, and so on. PAN, thus, acts as an identifier for the "person" with the tax department.

PAN was introduced to facilitates linking of various documents, including payment of taxes, assessment, tax demand, tax arrears etc. relating to an assessee, to facilitate easy retrieval of information and to facilitate matching of information relating to investment, raising of loans and other business activities of taxpayers collected through various sources, both internal as well as external, for detecting and combating tax evasion and widening of tax base.

Passport Services

The Passport Seva Programme (PSP) Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, provides passport services through the Central Passport Organization (CPO) and its network of Passport Offices, Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs); and Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs). Consular, Passport and Visa services to overseas Indians/Foreign nationals are provided by the PSP Division through the Indian Missions and Posts abroad.

Indian passports are issued through the network of 36 Passport Offices, Headquarters at CPV Division (only Diplomatic and Official passports) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Administration. This network has been expanded by adding 93 PSKs and 424 POPSKs as extended arms of the 36 Passport Offices. For Indians living abroad, passport and other miscellaneous services are rendered by the 190 Indian Missions/Posts abroad. All Passport Offices issue machine-readable passports as per the guidelines laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The Central Passport Organization (CPO) was created in 1959 as a subordinate office of the Ministry of External Affairs and is headed by Joint Secretary (Passport Seva Programme) and Chief Passport Officer, who also acts as the Appellate Authority under the Passports Act,1967 and the Head of Department under the Delegation of Financial Powers Rules 1978. The Head Quarter of the CPO is in the Passport Seva Programme (PSP) Division of the Ministry. The Division works under the supervision of Secretary (CPV & OIA). Joint Secretary (CPV) is responsible for the issue of diplomatic and official passports, consular and visa matters.

TNeGA Services