The E-Sanad portal aims at a centralized platform creation that enables both Indian citizens and foreigners to avail faceless, cashless, contactless, and paperless verification attestation and apostille of documents that have been obtained through document issuing authorities in India. Be of any nature such as commercial, educational or personal. These services are not available to Indians residing abroad but the phased manner of implementation will ensure that this is also taken care of in the future. This project has been started to ensure that foreign employers or other verification agencies can obtain genuine documents that have been digitally verified.
The project was launched on the 24th of May in 2017 with the CBSE documents depository. Success has led to the adoption of portal agencies such as the National academic depository, also known as NAD. To enhance the configurable mode of integration, authorities such as Digi locker, State, and Union territory depositories along with document issuing authorities have also been seen.
Services offered by the E- Sanad Portal
- Verification of documents- all documents which are either commercial or personal can be apostilled or authenticated by the E-Sanad portal. The document that needs to be verified should be available in the digital report repository of the portal which will then go on to be attested.
- The electronic method of registration is also available on the E-Sanad portal that will take care of the whole process of onboarding the consumer.
- The status of the application, the steps that have been completed and the steps that are due will be available on the portal in a clear format for the consumer to understand and avoid any confusion.
The user can avail of the above-mentioned services, he or she needs to register themselves on the E-Sanad portal. In the current situation, the portal is operational through five passport offices and in the attached station section of the CPV division of the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi. As the process moves ahead and for the decentralization of the attestation process to take place in other locations, the project is expected to be extended to the entire country.
Salient features of the portal
- A certificate that authenticates the origin of a public document which could either be a marriage or death certificate, a judgment, or an extract of a register, is called an apostille. It can only be used in one country which is the party to the Apostille convention and can be used in another country that is also a party to the convention.
- For every apostille of the document is rupees 50 which is an effect from the 21st of December in 2016 and can only be done to the Ministry of External Affairs. Normal attestation is done free of cost.
- Due to technical barriers, the ministry of external affairs is not currently accepting documents from applications or individuals directly. As a result of attestation or apostille by the MEA, the form needs to be submitted and collected from the four designated agencies. Charges on this process for a personal document are rupees 22 rupees, 18 for an educational document, and rupees 16 for a commercial document
