Birth certificate no longer mandatory for Indian Passport

In order to streamline, liberalise and ease the process of issue of passport, the government has said that the birth certificate is no longer required to get a passport.

While informing the Parliament, Minister of State for External Affairs General (retd) VK Singh said birth certificate that specifies the date of birth is no longer mandatory and documents such as PAN card, Aadhaar card, driving license, voter ID cards, LIC policy and matriculation certificate will suffice.

The MEA has taken a number of steps in the realm of passport policy which is expected to benefit the citizens of India applying for a passport. The details of these steps are given below:-

Proof of date birth

As per the extant statutory provisions of the Passport Rules, 1980, all the applicants born on or after 26/01/1989, in order to get a passport, had to, hitherto, mandatorily submit the Birth Certificate as the proof of Date of Birth (DOB). It has now been decided that all applicants of passports can submit any one of the following documents as the proof of DOB while submitting the passport application:

(i) Birth Certificate (BC) issued by the Registrar of Births & Deaths or the Municipal Corporation or any other prescribed authority whosoever has been empowered under the Registration of Birth & Deaths Act, 1969 to register the birth of a child born in India;

(ii) Transfer/School leaving/Matriculation Certificate issued by the school last attended/recognized educational board containing the DOB of the applicant;

(iii) PAN Card issued by the Income Tax Department with the DOB of applicant;

(iv) Aadhar Card/E-Aadhar having the DOB of applicant;

(v) Copy of the extract of the service record of the applicant (only in respect of Government servants) or the Pay Pension Order (in respect of retired Government Servants), duly attested/certified by the officer/in-charge of the Administration of the concerned Ministry/Department of the applicant, having his DOB;

(vi) Driving licence issued by the Transport Department of concerned State Government, having the DOB of applicant;

(vii) Election Photo Identity Card (EPIC) issued by the Election Commission of India having the DOB of applicant;

(viii) Policy Bond issued by the Public Life Insurance Corporations/Companies having the DOB of the holder of the insurance policy