Any resident of J&K or Ladakh intending to apply for passport won’t now require to produce hardcopy of documents, as the Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) here have switched over to DigiLocker.
“We have introduced DigiLocker here,” Regional Passport Officer (RPO) for Kashmir and Ladakh, B B Nagar told Greater Kashmir. “Two persons have so far applied via DigiLocker,” he said, adding that it will make passport services hassle-free.
The DigiLocker app is a quick and handy substitute for the physical passport documents, the PRO said.
The senior MEA official said they have taken several significant steps to improve the service delivery for the citizens. “Not only the work of simplifying passport rules has been achieved, we have also worked towards taking passport services to the doorstep of the citizens,” he added.
Digilocker, an application available on smart phones, offers a person to integrate his/her Aadhaar account with the app and “pull and save important documents associated with their social ID”. These can then be produced and shown whenever and wherever users require them. The app eliminates the use of physical documents.
Digilocker supports a range of documents, from users’ class X marks sheet to their driving licenses. “You can upload scanned copies of your documents (PDF, JPEG or PNG format) and access it anywhere you want,” an engineer of Passport Kendra said. “You can also e-sign these uploaded documents, which works like self-attestation of physical documents.”
DigiLocker is a key initiative under Digital India, the Government of India’s flagship program aimed at transforming India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.
Pertinently, MEA is also working towards rolling out e-passports for the citizens that are designed to increase security, making it more difficult to tamper with the data recorded on a passport, and limiting the chances of fraud.