Birth certificate not mandatory for issuing passport

Easing the process of obtaining a passport, the government has informed the Parliament that birth certificate would no longer be required for issuing a passport.

The government announced these new passport rules in order to streamline, liberalise and ease the process of issuing of passport. You may need to provide documents such as PAN card, driving licence, Aadhaar card, or Matriculation Certificate for getting a passport.

New passports will also have personal details printed in both Hindi and English. The Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh had already scraped the mandatory provision of birth certificate back in December.

Earlier, according to the Passport Rules, 1980, all applicants born on or after 26/01/1989, had to submit a birth certificate which was a mandatory provision.

But now they can submit any one of these, transfer/school leaving/Matriculation Certificate issued by the school last attended/recognized educational board containing the DOB of the applicant; PAN Card; Aadhaar Card/E-Aadhaar; driving license, Voter ID cards, even LIC policy bonds.

This would also enable single parents to apply for passports for their children. Besides this, married applicants would not be required to provide any marriage certificate nor the name of spouse if they are divorced or separated.