Union Budget 2022: India Government To Issue E-Passport Starting This Year

The Government of India has officially announced that it will start issuing e-passports starting 2022-23. Whoever applies for a new passport or even applies for a passport renewal will be getting the new Indian passport, which will be known as an e-passport that will have an embedded chip.

Do note that, a lot of countries have already been issuing e-passports for the last few years and India will now join them, starting this year. An e-passport will be hard to tamper and replicate, and here are the details on what makes an e-passport more powerful when compared to a regular passport.

What Is An E-Passport?

In terms of looks and feel, an e-passport will look similar to a regular passport, except for the fact that there will be an indication of a chip logo on the front of the passport, which helps distinguish it from a normal passport. As the name suggests, an e-passport will be an electronic passport, which will have a tiny chip that houses all the data about the passport holders.

If someone tries to tamper with an e-passport, it will identify the same, and authorities at the borders like airports won't be able to authenticate the user and his details from the country of origin. When it comes to normal passports, they use photos and some sort of hologram. Although it is hard to hack that system, it is not as secure as an e-passport.

As manufacturing of an e-passport is likely to cost a bit more than a regular passport, we could expect the price of the passport issuing might go up in the coming days. If you currently have a regular passport, you should be able to continue to use the same until the expiration date.

Finally, the Indian government has decided to issue an e-passport. If you are planning on getting your passport renewed or even planning to get a new passport, you are likely to get a new Indian passport with a chip and you will be able to identify the same by the chip logo located on the bottom of the passport.