PUNE: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) will introduce biometric passports consisting of features like thumb and iris scan (eye impression) of the passport holder embedded in the passport.
Speaking to media persons here, Passport Coordination and Diaspora and Non-Resident Indians (NRI) secretary, J C Sharma said the passports that would be introduced within a year would reduces the chances of forgery. Member countries of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) have already gone in for biometric passports.

Initially, the passports will carry the thumb impression and the iris scan images will be added later. Passport officials also said that charges for biometric passports would be increased from the existing Rs 1000.

Sharma also disclosed that the government was willing to invest in connecting the district passport cells, regional passport offices and offices of commissioners of police through a network of computers and Internet. This, however, is subject to the success of the decentralization scheme.

As per the scheme, district passport centers were introduced a couple of years ago in the country. Under the scheme, around 400 of the 500-odd districts in the country had passport cells at the district level.

CyberMedia News