India to roll out e-passports for hassle-free international travel

As per the latest development, the central government is working to roll out e-passports in a move to make international travel easier and hassle-free, and enable protection against identity theft.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar while delivering a message on the occasion of Passport Sewa Diwas, informed about this development and reaffirmed the government’s effort in enhancing citizen experience and public delivery.

He added that they will continue their commitment of delivering the next-level of citizen experience.He noted that the passport services were provided with the same vigour and enthusiasm during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He added that the government has also managed to set a record while dealing with the increased demand built up due to the pandemic, with a monthly average of 9.0 lakhs and 4.50 lakhs additional applications granted in the last one month.

The External Affairs Minister also announced that the Passport Seva Programme (PSP) will be embarking on an upgraded and improved version PSP V2.0 to ensure a digital ecosystem among all stakeholders and offer enhanced passport services to citizens.

Referring to this, he added, “It would ensure smooth governance end-to-end through standardised and liberalised processes, use of latest and emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Chat-Bot, Use of Big-Data, Advance Analytics etc.

The Ministry is also working to roll out ePassports for Indian citizens which would make easier international travel and enable protection against identity theft and greater data security.”

He informed that the upgraded Passport Seva System has been integrated with the DigiLocker system to facilitate a paperless documentation process.