Chandigarh, Sep 4 - Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will open six offices across India in October to provide passport services, a company official has said. The much-delayed Passport Seva Project is expected to take off with this move.

With the launch of this Rs.100 billion project, the processing time for issuance of passport is expected to be reduced to three days and to one day under the Tatkal (immediate) scheme.

'In the first phase of this project, computerised passport facilitation centres will be opened in Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Ambala, Bangalore, Mangalore and Hubli,' TCS global government industry group vice-president Tanmoy Chakraborty said on the sidelines of an IT summit here Thursday.

'Depending on the response, we have plans to increase the number of these facilitation centres to over 70 all across the country by June 2010,' he added.

'The implementation of this project has been delayed due to non-availability of disaster recovery sites. But gradually things have been sorted out,' stated Chakraborty.

TCS was awarded the project in 2008. The Ministry of External Affairs will monitor its working.