Railways to accept digital Aadhaar, driving licence as valid ID proof

Railways have agreed to accept soft copies of driving licence and Aadhar as identity proof if they are stored in DigiLocker. DigiLocker is a digital storage device used by people to store official documents on cloud. Indian Railways sent a message to all zonal principal chief commercial managers which conveyed that from now onwards Aadhar card and driving licence stored on DigiLocker will be considered valid identity proof.

“While undertaking journey in a train, if a passenger shows the Aadhaar/Driving Licence from the ‘Issued Documents’ section by logging into his/her DigiLocker account, the same should be considered as valid proof of identity,” said a release issued by the ministry. It is, however, clarified that the documents uploaded by the user himself/herself (i.e. the documents in ‘Uploaded Documents’ section) will not be considered as a valid proof of identity.

At present, the following proofs of identity are considered as valid for undertaking journey in any reserved class of Indian Railways:-

  • Voter Photo identity card issued by Election Commission of India
  • Passport
  • PAN Card issued by Income Tax Department
  • Driving Licence issued by RTO
  • Photo identity card having serial number issued by Central/State Government
  • Student Identity Card with photograph issued by recognized School/College for their students
  • Nationalised Bank Passbook with photograph
  • Credit Cards issued by Banks with laminated photograph
  • Unique Identification Card-Aadhaar, m-Aadhaar & e-Aadhaar
  • Photo Identity cards having serial number issued by Public Sector Undertakings of State/Central Government, District Administrations, Municipal bodies and Panchayat Administrations
  • In case of reserved tickets booked through computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters, for undertaking journey in Sleeper (SL) & Second Reserved Sitting (2S) classes, attested photocopy of Ration Card with photographs and Nationalized Bank Passbook with Photograph are also accepted

You can signup on DigiLocker here: https://digilocker.gov.in/