new delhi the central government is working to roll out epassports to make easier international travel and enable protection against identity theft and greater data security the external affairs minister s jaishankar said on fridayreaffirming the governments commitment to improving citizen experience and public delivery jaishankar delivered a message on the occasion of the passport seva divasthe mea along with the central passport organization has been marking this occasion and renewing our commitment to provide passport and passportrelated services to citizens of india in a timely reliable accessible transparent and efficient mannerit gives me great pleasure to join all our passport issuing authorities in india and abroad on the occasion of the passport seva divas 2022 he said the external affairs minister noted that passport services were rendered even during the testing times of the covid19 pandemici am happy to note that passport services were rendered with the same vigour and enthusiasm even during the testing times of the covid19 pandemic and the ministry rose to the occasion to meet the increased demand for passport services built up due to two and half years of the pandemic and dealt it swiftly with an impressive monthly average of 90 lakhs with 450 lakhs additional applications granted in the last one month thus setting a record he saidas we commemorate the passport seva divas on 24th june this year we continue our commitment to deliver the next level of citizen experience he addedlooking back jaishankar said the government has been very successful in simplifying the passport rules and procedures for the citizens to further smoothen the passport delivery ecosystem the ministry is continuously working with statesuts police to reduce the time taken for police verification the mpassport police app is now used in 22 statesuts covering 8275 police stationshe also informed that the passport seva system has also been integrated with the digilocker system to facilitate a paperless documentation processthe ministry in collaboration with the department of posts operationalized 428 post office passport seva kendras popsks to reach out to our citizens at their doorsteps the ministry has successfully integrated the passport issuance systems in 178 of our embassies and consulates abroad the minister said while adding that this has enabled the government to deliver passportrelated services to the diaspora efficiently through a centralized and secure applicationrecognizing the need to continually improve the quality of passport services the passport seva programme psp will be embarking on psp v20 an improved and upgraded version of p sp v10 which would ensure a digital ecosystem among all stakeholders and offer enhanced passport services to citizensit would ensure smooth governance endtoend through standardized and liberalized processes use of latest and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence chatbot use of bigdata advance analytics etc the ministry is also working to roll out epassports for indian citizens which would make easier international travel and enable protection against identity theft and greater data security he said in conclusion