ePassports for Indian Citizens, Government Plans to Issue in 2022
Indian Government is planning to issue e-Passports to the citizens, beginning in the calendar year 2022, said on Thursday by V Muraleedharan, External Affairs. The reply comes in Rajya Sabha by the Union Minister to a question on the issuance of ePassports. The e-version of the Indian passport will be a combination of paper and electronic passport that has an RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chip and embedded antenna as inlay in the back cover.
"The e-passports will be produced by the India Security Press, Nashik, which has issued letters of intent for the procurement of 4.5 crore ICAO-compliant electronic chips along with its operating system," Muraleedharan stated.
The Upper house gets informed by MoS that the sample of e-passports is being tested currently. The NIC (National Informatics Centre) will be responsible in the technical context for the issuance of such electronic passports.
"The passport's critical information will be printed on its data page as well as stored in the chip. The characteristics of the document and the chip are specified in International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) document 9303," he added.
