80 lakh e-passports issued till date; all Indian passports to be chipped by 2035: Officials

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Over 80 lakh e-passports have been issued in India since May 2025, when the country fully switched to the next-generation chipped passports under Passport Seva Programme Version 2.0, a senior official said on Monday.

MEA official said, “Every citizen who is applying for a new passport or renewal will now receive an e-passport. Since 28 May 2025, all passports issued in India are e-passports.”

The e-passport contains an RFID chip embedded in the last page with a smart card memory and an indigenously designed operating system. The chip stores demographic and biometric data in read-only format and has undergone composite certification as per international standards.

“Version 2.0 compares live biometric data of the applicant with the data already available in the system, makin