The Ministry of External Affairs has done away with the mandatory requirement of the birth certificate as proof of date of birth (DOB) when applying for a passport.
All passport applicants can submit any one of the following documents for passport application - transfer/school-leaving/matriculation certificate, PAN card, Aadhaar card/E-Aadhaar with the DOB, a copy of the extract of the service record of the person, driving licence, Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission or LIC policy bond.
As per the process of simplifying passports for Indian citizens, the government informed Parliament this week that Aadhaar or PAN Card among a host of documents could be used to establish proof of birth. As per the statutory provisions of the Passport Rules, 1980, all applicants born on or after January 26, 1989, had to mandatorily submit the birth certificate as proof of the DOB to get a passport.
Now they can submit transfer/school-leaving/matriculation certificate, PAN card, Aadhaar card/E-Aadhaar with the DOB, a copy of the extract of the service record of the person, driving licence, Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission or LIC policy bond as proof for date of birth.
The online passport application requires the person to provide the name of father, mother or legal guardian, i.e, only one parent and not both. This would enable single parents to apply for passports for their children, and to also issue passports where the name of either the father or mother is not required to be printed at the request of the applicant.
The government has also accepted the demand by sadhus and sanyasis that they should be allowed to write the names of their gurus instead of parents. But they have to provide at least one public document such as EPIC, PAN card or Aadhaar card, wherein the name of the guru has been recorded against the column(s) for parent(s) name(s).Neither divorce decrees, nor adoption certificates need to be submitted any longer to get a passport. Orphaned children only need a document from their orphanage to confirm date of birth.
Applicants over 60 and below 8 years of age will get a 10 per cent discount on passport fees.
The annexes to the passport form have been reduced from 15 to 9, and they only need to be printed out in plain paper, and self-attested. "No attestation/swearing by/before any Notary/Executive Magistrate/First Class Judicial Magistrate would be henceforth necessary. " This also means married applicants don't need to provide a marriage certificate, nor name of spouse if they are divorced or separated.
All these rules have been in operation since December 2016.
