MEA Announces New Rules to Apply For Passport

MEA Announces New Rules to Apply For Passport  A new set of rules were announced by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on December 23, 2016, to streamline, liberalise and ease the process of issue of passport to benefit the citizens of India applying for a passport. The total number of Annexes prescribed in the Passport Rule, 1980, has been reduced to 9 from the present 15. Besides,

some Annexes have been removed and certain Annexes have been merged. As per the new rules, applicants born after January 26, 1989 are not required to submit a proof of date of birth (DOB) which was mandatory till now. Another key step aimed at simplifying the process is that attestation by a magistrate or notary will no longer be necessary. Self-declaration on plain paper will do.

It is no more compulsory to provide the name of both father and mother while applying for the passport.  Besides, single parents can also apply for passports of their children.

Married applicants do not need to provide any marriage certificate. The applicant need not provide the name of her/his spouse in case of separated or divorced persons.

The rules also provides a provision for government servants, who are not able to get no objection certificate from their respective departments.

viii. Provision has also been provided for the holy men to apply for passport with the names of their spiritual gurus instead of parents, provided the name match with those on at least one document such as voter, PAN or Aadhar cards.