You Can Now Apply for a Passport Without a Birth Certificate!

Birth certificates are no longer mandatory to get a passport. With the rationale of making passports easily available to millions, the government informed the Parliament this week that Aadhaar or PAN card among a host of documents could be used to establish proof of birth.

As per the Passport Rules, 1980, all applicants born on or after 26/01/1989 had to submit a birth certificate, which was a mandatory provision during the application process.

With the change in rules, they can now submit any one of the following documents in place of their birth certificate —

1. Transfer, Matriculation or School Leaving Certificate issued by the school last attended/recognised educational board containing the DOB of the applicant

2. PAN Card

3. Aadhaar Card/E-Aadhaar

4. Driving license

5. Voter ID cards

6. LIC policy bonds

Government servants are allowed to give extracts of service record, pension records, etc.

Read more: Did Married Women Have to Change Names in Passports Before PM Modi’s Message? We’ve Got Answers

For those who aren’t aware of early amendments, here’s all you need to know.

All of these rules have been in operation since December 2016, reported TOI.

• Neither divorce decrees, nor adoption certificates need to be produced to get a passport.
• In case of orphaned children, they only need a document from their orphanage to confirm date of birth.
• The new passports will have personal details printed in both Hindi and English.
• Applicants over 60 years of age and below 8 years, will get a 10 per cent discount on passport fees.
• Online applicants can provide the name of only one parent or guardian, than both, helping single-parent families.
• The annexes to the passport form have been reduced from 15 to 9, and they only need to be printed out in plain paper, and can be self-attested. “No attestation/swearing by/before any Notary/Executive Magistrate/First Class Judicial Magistrate would be henceforth necessary.”
• This also means married applicants don’t need to provide a marriage certificate, or the name of their spouse if they are divorced or separated.

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