The Indian Government is expected to issue an e passport to Indian nationals from 2021.
The new e passport would be embedded with a microchip from 2021 for security reasons.
The Indian Government is searching for an Information Technology (IT) firm for the implementation of the project.
The decision was taken by the Union Government after running the trial on about 20,000 diplomats’ passports.
With this, India would be able to enhance immigration process with the help of new technology.
passport
The new e passports would make it difficult to forge.
The National Informatics Centre accompanied by the Ministry of External Affairs is working on the same.
The department, on the 13th of August, proposed to select an agency to set up an IT infrastructure and solution for e passports.
The selected IT company would set up to enable issuance of 10,000 to 20,000 e-passports per hour. The IT centers to handle the total operation would be set up at Delhi and Chennai.
The e passport facility would be available at all 36 passport centers in India.
As of now, Indian citizens are given printed passports.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar announced the introduction of e passports. He said the new initiative would strengthen the security of Indian travel documents.
The External Affairs Ministry of India is working with Indian Security Press, Nashik, and National Informatics Centre for chip enabled e-passports with advanced security features.
All citizens who would apply or would renew their passports are likely to get an e passport.
Stay tuned for further updates.
