Indian passport is only travel document, not evidence of citizenship; Ministry of External Affairs clarifies

NEW DELHI: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has clarified that an Indian passport cannot be used as legal proof of citizenship, despite the document being issued exclusively to Indian nationals.

In a recent statement, the ministry emphasised that a passport is fundamentally a government-issued travel document intended solely to facilitate international transit.

Alongside this legal clarification, the MEA announced a major upgrade to the transit document's security infrastructure. To curb forgery and improve international compliance, the government is expanding the rollout of advanced, chip-based e-passports embedded with biometric data.

The transition to this secure format is already well underway. According to ministry data, 14.7 million e-passports were issued over the last year alone. Officials confirmed that all newly printed passports now feature this electronic chip upgrade, with the hardware being sourced domestically from the India Security Press in Nashik.