Govt wants to link Aadhaar with domestic air travels

Mumbai: For those who are frequent air flyers within the country, this must come as a surprise. The government wants to use Aadhaar details for putting in place a mechanism that will allow you entry and exit at domestic airports.

For this, the government has asked IT major Wipro to prepare a blueprint which the company is expected to submit by as early as May, according to a report in The Times of India.

Once in place, the system that will be set up at all domestic airports will use a flyer's thumb impression as an identity for all his air travels.

"Aviation ministry had been toying with the idea of linking Aadhar numbers to air travel bookings and then enabling biometric access possible at airports," the report said.

Recently various airport operators and local air carriers took a delegation to Civil Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha. Sinha met these stakeholders in presence of Aviation Secretary R N Choubey who expressed the need of such a mechanism.

"It was felt a joint system be developed that can be replicated by all airports. Wipro has been asked to develop a concept note in this regard after consulting all stakeholders, including the JV airport operators. We are seeing what all airport processes can be made e-enabled," Airports Authority of India (AAI) chairman Guruprasad Mohapatra told TOI.

Mohapatra added that the idea was to encourage passengers to submit their Aadhaar details at the time of booking tickets online. And, once the flyers reach airport, their thumb impression will be used to identify them through a touch pad.

The same procedure will be repeated when passengers have been allowed inside. "We want passengers to have as seamless and effortless travel experience at airports as possible," Mohapatra added.