"India to soon introduce next-gen ePassport for citizens," Ministry of External Affairs Secretary Sanjay Bhattacharyya said in a tweet.
The MEA secretary said the passports would be secure with biometric data and will enable smooth passage through immigration posts globally.
The microchip embedded in the passport will hold all vital information related to the passport holder’s biometric data, as well as security features that will disallow unauthorized data transfer through RFID (radio-frequency identification). Tampering with the chip will result in the failure of the passport authentication. India Security Press, Nashik will produce the e-passports.
The first e-passport in India was issued to the then President of India Pratibha Patil on 25 June 2008 by the Indian Passport Authority.
India has already issued 20,000 official and diplomatic e-passports having chips embedded in them on a trial basis. The e-passports will be issued to the citizens on the successful completion of the procurement process by India Security Press, Nashik.