DigiLocker

Railways has said hereafter they will accept soft copies of Aadhaar and driving licence provided they are in your DigiLocker. Railways, according to the PTI report, has sent a missive to all zonal principal chief commercial managers that these two identity proofs on such service will be accepted as valid proof of identity of a passenger.

Last year, the Ministry of Railways had permitted mAadhaar (Aadhaar card on mobile app launched by UIDAI) as one of the prescribed proofs of identity for rail travel in any reserved class. For showing Aadhaar, the person has to open the app and enter his/ her password to show the digital Aadhaar Card.

“If a passenger shows Aadhaar or driving licence from the ‘issued documents’ section by logging into his DigiLocker account, the same should be considered as valid proof of identity,” PTI cited a railway order as saying. Railways also clarified that the documents uploaded by the passenger himself that is the documents in the ‘uploaded documents’ section will not be considered as a valid proof of identity, the report added.

DigiLocker is a platform for issuance and verification of documents & certificates in a digital way, thus eliminating the use of physical documents. Indian citizens who sign up for a DigiLocker account get a dedicated cloud storage space that is linked to their Aadhaar (UIDAI) number. Organizations that are registered with Digital Locker can push electronic copies of documents and certificates (e.g. driving license, Voter ID, School certificates) directly into citizens lockers.

Citizens can also upload scanned copies of their legacy documents in their accounts. These legacy documents can be electronically signed using the eSign facility. Citizens can access their digital documents anytime, anywhere and share it online. This is convenient and time saving. It reduces the administrative overhead of Government departments by minimizing the use of paper.

Digital Locker makes it easier to validate the authenticity of documents as they are issued directly by the registered issuers. The facility is available through its portal and mobile application, too.