Passport Issued to Indian Citizens After Due Verification, Governed by 1967 Act: MEA Amid Citizenship Row

New Delhi:In the wake of the recent row over an Indian passport’s standing vis-a-vis citizenship proof or criteria, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) said on Tuesday that “an Indian passport is a document that, as per the Passports Act, 1967, is issued by the Government of India to regulate the departure from India of citizens of India”.

At his weekly briefing on Tuesday, MEA spokeserson Randhir Jaiswal added, “It (the passport) is issued after due verification laid out by an established process. The issue of passports to Indian citizens or any other individual is governed by the Passports Act, 1967 and Passports Rules, 1980. Currently, less than eight per cent of Indian citizens hold a passport.”

The row had been ignited after government sources had last month said that a “passport is a travel document and is not a document of citizenship”, after which Opposition parties and several activists had slammed the Government. It may be recalled that the importance of a passport had recently been highlighted during the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll that is being carried out by the Election Commission of India (ECI).

From May last year, India has rolled out biometric chip-enabled e-passports that “securely embeds a citizen's biometric data”. About 1.47 crore of these passports have been issued since May last year, sources had said earlier, adding that “there is no prospect of tampering with data” in these passports.