NEW DELHI: Minister of State for External Affairs, V Muraleedharan on Friday inaugurated the digilocker service for passport seva, enabling applicants to submit documents online.
According to the minister, the move will benefit applicants as they will no longer be required to carry original documents at the time of application or renewal of passports.
Documents which can be stored in the government e-locker or digilocker include Aadhaar card, driving licence, voter ID card, PAN verification record, arms licence, birth certificate, caste certificate, ration card, pension certificate, life insurance policy certificate, class X certificate, electricity and telephone bills.
“To give further fillip to the citizen-centric approach, and to enhance passport service experience in a paperless mode, we have successfully integrated into digilocker platform of the Government. This would enable citizens to submit documents required for passport services through digilocker in a paperless mode. Now, they are not required to carry original documents,” Muraleedharan said.
The minister said the government is working on the idea of including passport as one of the documents in the digilocker.
“Moving forward, I am confident this will help citizens retrieve the passport whenever required. In case of loss of passport and while reissuance, this facility will be of great help,” he said, adding that enhanced security features for ePassport are in the pipeline to make it tamper proof.
“In the coming years, biometric passports would help improve immigration processes at airports which are equipped with automatic e-Passport gates,” he said.