Passengers flying out of airports in the State will have to wait a little longer for Digi Yatra, the biometric-based digital processing of their data.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is planning to introduce paperless travel through facial recognition-based passenger processing at Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune and Vijayawada airports from February. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has already initiated a pilot project at Kempegowda International Airport at Bengaluru and at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Hyderabad.
Digi Yatra is a system of digital processing of passengers based on facial recognition at entry-point check, security check and aircraft boarding at airports. Besides, this will also facilitate self bag drop and check-in.
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Passengers can create a Digi Yatra identity in a central system, by providing name, e-mail identity, mobile number and details of voter identity, driver licence and Aadhaar. On first travel, the passenger has to go to the registration kiosk at the airport for validating the identity. After successful verification, the photo of the passenger will be included to the Digi Yatra profile in the central system.
Apart from avoiding multiple check points, the benefit of the scheme is that passengers need not have to spent more time in queues. Besides, airports will have real-time information on passengers.
Sources said the three operational airports in Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram handle over 1.5 crore passengers a year.
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The number of international and domestic passengers in the State is also set to increase with the commissioning of Kannur International Airport in December.