BENGALURU: In a big relief for those applying for passports or trying to renew them in Karnataka, passport offices no longer require one to present physical copies of the document for verification. Documents stored on DigiLocker, the online digitisation service of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, are now accepted.
The facility was launched on Republic Day and the public was able to avail of the facility from Wednesday. The Digilocker (Digital locker) was launched by the Centre on July 1, 2015, but the Passport Seva Project (PSP) could not be incorporated into it due to technical reasons.
Regional Passport Officer, Bengaluru, Bharath Kumar Kuthati, said: "The PSP has now been integrated with Digilocker. Henceforth, the following five documents necessary for any passport-related service could be accessed through the Digital locker: Class 10 certificate/mark sheet, PAN card, driving licence, Voter ID card and Aadhar card."
The Passport Seva Kendras at Lal Bagh and Marthahalli in Bengaluru and the ones at Kalaburagi, Mangaluru, and Hubballi as well as the 23 Postal Passport Seva Kendras across the State would accept the DigiLocker document system, Kuthati said.
"Public need not put their documents at risk by carrying them every time they need to visit the passport office. There had been a repeated request from those visiting our office to introduce this feature as many had stored their original documents in the DigiLocker."
It has been just two days since the launch with no publicity given yet. "Some people have already begun availing the facility," he said.
Passport officials need not spend time repeatedly poring over physical certificates to verify their authenticity. "When it is accessed via Digilocker, we can be sure of their authenticity," he added.
As of now, there is no move to completely switch over to the online mode. Either of the modes - physical proof of documents as well as DigiLocker mode is being accepted, the official said.