The Government of India is planning to issue e-passport by the year 2021, a report by The Economic Times said.
If someone applies for a passport in 2021, there is a good chance that you could get an e-passport embedded with an electronic microprocessor chip.
On trial bases, the government first plans to issue 20,000 official and diplomatic e-passports, with such chips.
The government is also on the lookout for selecting an agency that will set up the IT Infrastructure and solution to implement the project.
This project could end up being as important as the Aadhar cards and the new passports will also be very difficult to forge and allow Indians quicker immigration for international passengers.
The agency will set up a dedicated unit and processes for preparing personalised e-passports to enable issuance of 10,000 to 20,000 per hour and IT systems will be set up in Delhi and Chennai to handle this load.
The National Informatics Centre is working in tandem with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) on Wednesday (August 12) to select an agency to set up an IT Infrastructure and solution for e-personalisation of passports, ET accessed this RFP.
So far, e-passports were issued only from CPV Division at MEA headquarters for diplomatic and official passports.
To ensure interoperability between countries, e-passports that will be issued will be based on the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) standard.
The request for proposal (RFP) says “It will require a completely dedicated set-up and processes for e-passport document issuance. The e-passport has international ramifications because of its usage as a credible identity document issued by any sovereign country, it is absolutely necessary to keep track of any security and quality issues”.
At present, the Europian Union and Australia accept e-passports along with a few other countries.
The passports that Indian citizens use are printed on booklets.
The government plans to implement this new initiative without disturbing existing processes.
When the new e-passports will be rolled out, the initial target will output of 10,000 e-passports per hour and 50,000 per day, scalable up to 20,000 per hour and one lakh per day.