Passport Verification Goes Digital: Embracing Digital India

Getting an Indian Passport can be a nightmare for many. The amount of time that it takes and the meticulous process involved can put most people in distress and look for alternate options (agents). But wait, there’s a good news. The government of India has now curated a national database of criminals and cross-verifying it with the history of the applicant will make it even easier to scan through the application. Which means there will be no more physical police verification in the near future.

Crime and Criminal Tracking and Network Systems (CCTNS) will be soon linked to the passport service of the Ministry of External affairs, making physical police verification a thing of the past in a period of one year or so.

Police in some states are already using CCTNS for passport credentials. Police will be given hand held devices to go to an applicant’s address and his or her details will be uploaded with the network. It will minimise contact with police and reduce time.

– Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi

Further, a digital police portal has been created under CCTNS to help the citizens report a crime and request for an online passport verification. The project aims to connect all 15,398 police stations together, thereby creating a list of the crimes and the criminals.

The whole project put to use will bring down the current police verification time of 12-20 days to a mere 1-2 days.

Digital India is here!

Related: Influential Passports in the world

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