Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday said Digi Yatra facility will be available at 25 more airports in 2024.
Currently, the facility is available at 13 airports for domestic passengers.
Digi Yatra provides for contactless, seamless movement of passengers at various check points at airports based on Facial Recognition Technology (FRT).
At a briefing in the national capital, Scindia said Digi Yatra will be introduced at 14 airports in the first phase and another 11 airports in the second phase next year.
By the end of 2024, Digi Yatra will be available at 25 more airports and the total number of airports that will have the facility will increase to 38, he said.
Currently, Digi Yatra facility is available at 13 airports that handle around 85 per cent of the country's domestic air passenger traffic. Next year, the facility will be available at a total of 38 airports that handle around 95 per cent of the traffic.
The data shared by a passenger for Digi Yatra is stored in an encrypted format.
For availing the service, a passenger has to register his or her details on 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 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.
The foundation's shareholders are Airport Authority of India (AAI), Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL), Bangalore International Airport Ltd (BIAL), Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL), Hyderabad International Airport Ltd (HIAL) and Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL).
More manpower, X-ray machines in place to curb congestion at airports
To tackle congestion at airports, civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said manpower, X-ray machines, departure entry gates, check-in counters and immigration counters have been increased compared to last year.
The number of X-ray Baggage Inspection System (XBIS) has been increased by 33 per cent and at AAI airports by 49 per cent on a year-on-year basis.
Among others, the CISF personnel at the joint venture airports have been increased to 19,760 as of December 12 this year. This is a rise of 19 per cent compared to 16,572 personnel on December 12, 2022, the minister said at a briefing.
According to him, the deployment of CISF personnel at AAI (Airports Authority of India) airports has increased to 4,973, a rise of 27 per cent as against 3,915 on December 12, 2022.
The minister said that in spite of domestic passenger traffic crossing 4.67 lakh daily, there were no major reports of congestion in comparison to December 2022 when the traffic was around 4 lakh per day.
