Government launches Digital attestation service

The government of India on Wednesday announced a service to digitise the process of attestation of documents for those going abroad, so that they are spared the trouble of visiting government offices for the purpose. 

e-Sanad' -- an initiative of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), in association with two other ministries -- will initially be hosting school leaving certificates with the help of Central Board of Secondary Education(CBSE). 


In subsequent phases, the portal will also host documents from central universities. 

'Parinaam Manjusha', the CBSE repository of documents like mark-sheets and migrations certificates, has been integrated with e-Sanad for this purpose. 

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said she collaborated with the ministries of Human Resource Development (HRD) and Electronics and Information Technology to execute the task.

"Every individual who goes abroad needs to get tens of certificates attested... There was such corruption that if anyone in Bangalore (Bengaluru) wanted to get his documents attested in Delhi to go abroad, there would be touts to do this for him for money," Sushma Swaraj told media. 

Regarding formalities for passport, Swaraj said there were rules which were "impractical, obsolete, unnecessary and anachronistic". She said the number for passport applications had increased by 30 per cent since the simplification of process. 

CBSE Chairman R.K. Chaturvedi said individuals seeking certificates through e-Sanad for 2016 would be able to access them free of cost. To get older certificates, one would have to pay Rs 100.

He said e-Sanad would be a helpful even for employers, who would be able to verify the potential employees' documents through it.