Digi Yatra to be introduced at 14 more airports this year

The government plans to roll out Digi Yatra at 14 more airports in the coming months and make the facility available for foreign citizens as well, according to officials.

Currently, Digi Yatra, which provides for contactless, seamless movement of passengers at various check points at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT), is available at 13 airports for domestic passengers.

Plans are afoot to introduce Digi Yatra at 14 airports, including Chennai, Bhubaneshwar and Coimbatore, by March this year.

Other airports are Dabolim, Mopa Goa, Indore, Bagdogra, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Nagpur, Patna, Raipur, Srinagar and Vishakhapatnam, the officials said on Tuesday.

Further, they said that Digi Yatra will be implemented at 11 more airports in 2025.

Among other plans, the government intends to put in place e-passport based enrolment that will also allow foreign citizens to avail Digi Yatra facility, the officials said.

Citing available data, they also said there has been a significant growth in the total number of Digi Yatra app users during the period from December 2022 to November 2023.

As per an analysis, the app has also helped in reducing the processing time taken for passengers at entry gates and boarding gates, the officials said.

Digi Yatra was introduced in December 2022.

At present, it is available at 13 airports -- Delhi, Bengaluru, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Vijayawada, Pune, Mumbai, Cochin, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur and Guwahati.

The data shared by a passenger for Digi Yatra is stored in an encrypted format. To avail of the service, a passenger has to register his or her details on the Digi Yatra 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 the airport.

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 the security and board the aircraft.

Digi Yatra Foundation, a not-for-profit company, is the nodal body for Digi Yatra.

Last week, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said Digi Yatra is purely voluntary for air passengers and personnel at airports have been directed to collect data for the application only with the consent of passengers.