Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: DigiYatra

Mains level: Not Much

digiyatra

The centre has introduced paperless entry at select airports to make air travel hassle-free under the DigiYatra initiative.

What is DigiYatra?

DigiYatra envisages that travellers pass through various checkpoints at the airport through paperless and contactless processing.
This means, passengers won’t need to carry their ID card and boarding pass.
This would rather use facial features to establish their identity, which would be linked to the boarding pass.
With this technology, the entry of passengers would be automatically processed based on the facial recognition system at all checkpoints – including entry into the airport, security check areas, aircraft boarding, etc.

Implementation strategy

In the first phase, the initiative will be launched at seven airports, starting with three — Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi.
It will then be followed by four airports namely Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Vijayawada by March 2023.
Subsequently, the technology will be implemented across the country.

The project is being implemented by the DigiYatra Foundation — a joint-venture company whose shareholders are the Airports Authority of India (26% stake) and Bengaluru Airport, Delhi Airport, Hyderabad Airport, Mumbai Airport and Cochin International Airport.
These five shareholders equally hold the remaining 74% of the shares.

For availing the service, a passenger has to register their details on the DigiYatra app using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture.
In the next step, the boarding pass has to be scanned, and the credentials are shared with airport authorities.
At the airport e-gate, the passenger has to first scan the bar coded boarding pass and the facial recognition system installed at the e-gate will validate the passenger’s identity and travel document.
Once this process is done, the passenger can enter the airport through the e-gate.
The passenger will have to follow the normal procedure to clear security and board the aircraft.