Four airports in the country will soon get a futuristic facial-recognition boarding system for passengers.

In a written response to a question in Lok Sabha on Thursday, Minister of State for Civil Aviation V K Singh said the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is working on the country's first facial recognition technology-based biometric boarding system for passengers at the Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata and Vijayawada airports. "This biometric boarding system is part of the first phase of Digi Yatra scheme's implementation," Singh said in the response.

The Digi Yatra initiative seeks to promote paperless and hassle-free air travel. It is a biometric-based digital processing system for passenger entry and related requirements at the airport, according to the government. The AAI has engaged NEC Corporation Private Limited to implement this technology, the first-of-its-kind in the country, at the four airports, the minister said, adding the vendor was selected through an open tender process.

The proposed Digi Yatra central eco-system has been planned to go live in March 2022, he stated. Digi Yatra will be scaled up in a phased manner for adoption across various airports of the country, he added.