Government announces issuance of e-Passports

The Government on Tuesday announced in the Union Budget for 2022-23 “the issuance of ePassports using embedded chip and futuristic technology that will be rolled out in 2022-23 to enhance convenience for the citizens in their overseas travel”.

It may be noted that last month, following an announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India would be introducing e-passports, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had signed an agreement for the second phase of the Passport Seva Programme (PSPV2.0) with the Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as the Service Provider for the project that will see a technological upgrade in the form of “Biometrics, Artificial Intelligence, Advance Data Analytics, Chat-Bot, Auto-response, Natural Language Processing, (and) Cloud Enablement”.

The “issuance of ePassports for enhanced customer satisfaction, increased security and next level of citizen experience will also be unveiled in the upgraded PSP-V 2.0”, the MEA had said last month.