India, Nov. 18 -- The ministry of external affairs has issued more than 80 lakh e-passports after it rolled out the citizen friendly scheme six months ago, with the new microchip-embedded document offering a smooth and swift immigration process and reducing the possibility of misuse by incorporating advanced security features, officials aware of the matter said on Tuesday.

Also, more than 62,000 e-passports have been issued by Indian missions abroad, the officials said at a briefing, adding that all legacy passports will remain valid till 2035.

They described the switch from legacy to e-passports under the Passport Seva Programme (PSP-V2.0) as an upgrade from "3G to 5G" in wireless telecommunication technology.

The e-passports store th...