During Union Budget speech, Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced about rolling out new E-Passports. They will be infused with microchips soon in this financial year to make travelling abroad easy for Indian citizens.
Many of us are now curious about this new E-Passport. Many of us will be curious to know – What is E-Passport? When and how will we get our E-Passport? We have tried to answer these to ease up your curiosity regarding the subject.
What is E-Passport ?
E Passport is just like your normal passport infused with an electronic microprocessor chip containing data such as fingerprints, photos, and signatures. Biometric passports are scanned through special devices, E-Passport is designed to lighten the burden of the traveller and the Airport staff at the passport checkpoint, E-Passport is designed in such a manner that it won’t be easy to tamper. Also, the infused microchip in the passport will assure that passport stays tamper-free because under any circumstances if the tamper has been occurred or been tried the passport will fail to authenticate during the process.
When and how can we get our E-Passport ?
According to the Finance Minister’s Announcement, the E-Passport with an Infused microchip will be introduced this financial year. The process may take time but the Government has already started working on the implementation of rolling out new E-Passport. For the second phase of the Passport Seva program (PSP) which is termed PSP-V2.0.
Ministry of external affairs has already signed an agreement with Tata Consultancy worth one billion dollars for the fastest delivery to the citizens with more effective and fast Processes of the interrogation, Verification, and profile check of the passport holder with the help of government bodies like local police and MEA.
E-Passports are already being used in more than 60 countries and now India might make it into the list of those countries too.
