Hyderabad: A passport is a travel document that attests nationality when an Indian is abroad, and should not be construed as proof of citizenship, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Wednesday, June 24, while noting that 14.7 million chip-based e-passports have been issued since their rollout last year.

Speaking on the occasion of Passport Seva Divas, observed on June 24 to mark the enactment of the Passports Act in 1967, ministry officials said e-passports currently make up about 10 per cent of all passports issued, with all new passports now chip-based.

“A passport is issued after a lot of due diligence, and it is based on documents from several government agencies,” an official said.

E-passport features

The e-passports contain an embedded antenna and a radio frequency identification chip storing personal particulars and biometric data, making them harder to forge and faster to clear at immigration counters abroad. “It is more difficult to generate fake passports and the e-passports offer greater reassurance to immigration authorities abroad,” an official said.

The chips are sourced from the India Security Press in Nashik, which procures them from overseas. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) handles technology and services for the Passport Seva Project, though all passport data is stored on ministry servers.

Visa access, faster processing

The number of countries offering visa-free entry to Indian nationals has risen to 27 from 16 in 2019, while those offering visa-on-arrival has gone up from 38 to 47 in the same period. Another 66 countries offer e-visas to Indians. India also has migration and mobility agreements with 25 countries, mostly in Europe.

Passport processing time has been brought down to an average of five to six days, with applicants now spending under 45 minutes at Passport Seva Kendras. The number of such kendras has grown to 544 from 77 a decade ago. 

Efforts are on to reduce police verification time to two to three days nationally, replicating the performance of states that have already achieved this, officials said.

(With inputs from Hindustan Times)