Your passport is about to get smarter Coming in 2017: chip-embedded passports, followed by fully digital ones

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The government has announced that passports with electronic chips will be introduced later this year, in a bid to curb forgery and improve security. These tamper-proof chips will have personal identification data, including fingerprints and bio-metrics, which will be verified at ports of entry, VK Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs has said. This will be followed by a fully digital passport, which you can carry in your mobile phone. This, of course, is likely to take longer.

E-passports have been in circulation across the world for over a decade. Malaysia was the first country in the world to introduce biometric passports in 1998. Today, most European countries, Canada, Sri Lanka, China, Brazil and others offer the smart passport.
Meanwhile, new rules introduced by the government now make it easier to apply for a passport. Broadly, these changes have removed the need to link oneself to parents or a spouse and have made the documentation less cumbersome.

For example, those born after 26 Jan 1989 no longer need to submit their birth certificate—an Aadhar Card, PAN card, driver’s licence, school-leaving certificate or even a policy bond by a public insurance company will suffice.

Also, one need not fill in the names of both parents in the application—either one will do. You don’t need to furnish a marriage certificate too. Those who have separated or divorced need not provide names of their spouse. And annexures don’t have to be certified by any public official anymore—self-declaration on plain paper will count.

Read the full list of changes here.
Press Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of External Affairs
23-December-2016 16:18 IST
Announcement of new Passport Rules
1. In order to streamline, liberalize and ease the process of issue of passport, the Ministry of External Affairs has taken a number of steps in the realm of passport policy which is expected to benefit the citizens of India applying for a passport. The details of these steps are given below:-

PROOF OF DATE OF BIRTH
2. As per the extant statutory provisions of the Passport Rules, 1980, all the applicants born on or after 26/01/1989, in order to get a passport, had to, hitherto, mandatorily submit the Birth Certificate as the proof of Date of Birth (DOB). It has now been decided that all applicants of passports can submit any one of the following documents as the proof of DOB while submitting the passport application:
(i) Birth Certificate (BC) issued by the Registrar of Births & Deaths or the Municipal Corporation or any other prescribed authority whosoever has been empowered under the Registration of Birth & Deaths Act, 1969 to register the birth of a child born in India;
(ii) Transfer/School leaving/Matriculation Certificate issued by the school last attended/recognized educational board containing the DOB of the applicant;
(iii) PAN Card issued by the Income Tax Department with the DOB of applicant;
(iv) Aadhar Card/E-Aadhar having the DOB of applicant;
(v) Copy of the extract of the service record of the applicant (only in respect of Government servants) or the Pay Pension Order (in respect of retired Government Servants), duly attested/certified by the officer/in-charge of the Administration of the concerned Ministry/Department of the applicant, having his DOB;
(vi) Driving licence issued by the Transport Department of concerned State Government, having the DOB of applicant;
(vii) Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission of India having the DOB of applicant;
(viii) Policy Bond issued by the Public Life Insurance Corporations/Companies having the DOB of the holder of the insurance policy.

Report of the Inter Ministerial Committee
3. A three-member Committee comprising of the officials of the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development was constituted to examine various issues pertaining to passport applications where mother/child has insisted that the name of the father should not be mentioned in the passport and also relating to passport issues to children with single parent and to adopted children. The Report of the Committee has been accepted by the Minister of External Affairs.
The following policy changes have been made inter-alia on the basis of the recommendations of this Committee:
(i) The online passport application form now requires the applicant to provide the name of father or mother or legal guardian, i.e., only one parent and not both. This would enable single parents to apply for passports for their children and to also issue passports where the name of either the father or the mother is not required to be printed at the request of the applicant.
(ii) The total number of Annexes prescribed in the Passport Rule, 1980, has been brought down to 9 from the present 15. Annexes A, C, D, E, J, and K have been removed and certain Annexes have been merged.
(iii) All the annexes that are required to be given by the applicants would be in the form of a self declaration on a plain paper. No attestation/swearing by/before any Notary/Executive Magistrate/First Class Judicial Magistrate would be henceforth necessary.
(iv) Married applicants would not be required to provide Annexure K or any marriage certificate.
(v) The Passport application form does not require the applicant to provide the name of her/his spouse in case of separated or divorced persons. Such applicants for passports would not be required to provide even the Divorce Decree.
(vi) Orphaned children who do not have any proof of DOB such as Birth Certificate or the Matriculation Certificate or the declaratory Court order, may now submit a declaration given by the Head of the Orphanage/Child Care Home on their official letter head of the organization confirming the DOB of the applicant.
(vii) In case of children not born out of wedlock, the applicant for the passport of such children should submit only Annexure G while submitting the passport application.
(viii) In case of issue of passport to in-country domestically adopted children, submission of the registered adoption deed would no longer be required. In the absence of any deed to this effect, the passport applicant may give a declaration on a plain paper confirming the adoption.
(ix) Government servants, who are not able to obtain the Identity Certificate (Annexure-B)/ No-Objection Certificate (Annexure-M) from their concerned employer and intend to get the passport on urgent basis can now get the passport by submitting a self-declaration in Annexure-‘N’ that he/she has given prior Intimation letter to his/her employer informing that he/she was applying for an ordinary passport to a Passport Issuing Authority.
(x) Sadhus/ Sanyasis can apply for a passport with the name of their spiritual Guru mentioned in the passport application in lieu of their biological parent(s) name(s) subject to their providing of at least one public document such as Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission of India, PAN card, Adhar Card, etc wherein the name of the Guru has been recorded against the column(s) for parent(s) name(s).
4. Necessary notifications would be soon published in the Official Gazette to give effect to these changes. Instructions are also being issued to the Passport Issuing Authorities in India and abroad on these revised regulations.
5. The Ministry of External Affairs expects that the above changes in the Passport Rules would further ease the process for passport applicants in getting their Passport. At the same time, it would enable this Ministry to continue to deliver passport related services to the citizens in a timely, transparent, more accessible, reliable manner and in a comfortable environment through streamlined processes and committed, trained and motivated workforce.
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