Ministry of External Affairs Government of India

Shri Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology
Shri Sanjay Bhattacharyya, Secretary, CPV & OIA
Shri Arun Kumar Chatterjee, Additional Secretary (AD)
Shri Jayant N. Khobragade, Joint Secretary (PSP) & CPO
Ladies & gentlemen
Good afternoon and Namaskaram

I am extremely delighted to be here today at this important event to inaugurate ‘DigiLocker for Passport Seva’.

2. The Passport Seva Program has brought in huge transformation towards delivery of Passport Services in India. This has seen a sea change during the last 6 years. The monthly submission of applications has crossed one million mark for the first time in the year 2017. I am told that, more than 7 crores passports have been issued through the Pasport Seva Project till date.

3. We took several significant steps to improve the service delivery experience for the citizens. Not only did the work of simplifying Passport rules has been achieved but also we worked towards taking passport services closer to the doorsteps of the citizens. Starting Passport Seva Kendars in Head Post Offices was a step in this direction. As a result, 426 Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) have been operationalised as on date and many more are in pipeline. This, when added to 36 Passport Offices and 93 erstwhile Passport Seva Kendras makes a total of 555 Passport Offices for public.

4. Today, we do not leave our diaspora behind. For the ease of Indian diaspora abroad to avail passport services smoothly, we have integrated 150 Indian Missions/Posts abroad into Passport Seva Project.

Friends,

5. To give further fillip to the citizen-centric approach, and to enhance passport service experience in a paperless mode, we have now successfully integrated into Digilocker platform of the Government. This would enable citizens to submit various documents required for Passport Services through DigiLocker in a paperless mode. Now, they are not required to carry the original documents.

6. I would also like to add here that as a next step, we are working on the idea of passport to be included as one of the documents in DigiLocker. Moving forward, I am confident that this will help the citizens to retrieve the passport whenever required. In case of loss of passport and while reissuance, this facility will be of great help.

7. Not only that, we are also working towards rolling out of ePassport for the citizens that are designed to increase security, making it more difficult to tamper with data recorded on a passport, thereby limiting the chances of fraud. In the coming years, biometric passports would help improve immigration processes at airports which are equipped with automatic e-Passport gates. In the upcoming Passport Seva Programme V2.0, the use of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Chat-Bot, Analytics, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will further ease the citizen experience and expeditious service delivery.

Friends,

8. The government under Shri Narendra Modi ji has been giving due importance in realising the full potential of Digital India. Digital India is transformational, it brought in public accountability through mandated delivery of government’s services electronically, and minimised interaction between officials and citizens. I am confident that leveraging the digilocker for passport services would ensure Ease of Access to all citizens.

9. With the availability of DigiLocker facility now, the citizens do not have to look for the original documents to carry with themselves when they are away from their residence. I welcome all the citizens to use the DigiLocker facility and make the Passport application process paperless.