India to introduce e-passports soon to citizens | Fusion - WeRIndia

To ease the passport issuance process for hassle-free international travel, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced the launch of e-passports.

At present passports issued by the government to Indian citizens are in the form of a printed booklet. Soon, the form of the passport will be changed with the decision of the government.

MEA Secretary Sanjay Bhattacharya shared this matter on Twitter, saying that chip-enabled e-passports would be issued to citizens soon. These next-gen e-passports will help smooth passage through immigration posts across the globe.

E-passports will secure biometric data. Besides, they will be compliant with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) standards. The ICAO standards are more secure. Hence, e-passports will be harder to destroy.

These e-passports will be produced at India Security Press, Nashik. As per sources, the e-passport will have an electronic microprocessor chip embedded in them to hold vital information of passport holders like name, age, biometric data, and other personal details.

It also will have additional security features to prohibit unauthorized data transfer through Radio-frequency identification (RFID). The tampering with the chip will not be possible, and if any such thing happens, the authentication of the passport will be failed. Thus, the e-passport is more secure.

The e-passport process has been tested on a trial basis. As part of this trial, 20,000 official and diplomatic e-Passports were issued, with a chip embedded in them.

The first e-passport in India was issued to the then President of India Pratibha Patil in 2008. If the trials are successful, then the Ministry will begin issuing e-passports to all citizens of the country.

Only the form of the passport will be changed, and all other remaining things like applying for the passport, document verification etc., will remain the same.

India has 555 Passport Kendras, including 36 Passport Offices. These Passport Offices will issue e-Passports.

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