Taking domestic flight within India? Keep Aadhaar number ready!

Soon, If you want to take a domestic flight within India, you will need to provide Aadhaar number. This new rule will come into effect in next three months. The draft civil aviation requirement (CAR) in this regard would be placed for the public discussion by next week, according to the Times of India. The people can offer their suggestions on it in 30 days. After that, by July, the rule may come into effect.  The need for passenger identification has become mandatory as the  Civil Aviation ministry is planning to put four levels of offences, graded in terms of seriousness, in its proposed nofly list. Every level of offence will have a different grounding period for concerned passengers. "To implement this, we need a foolproof way of identifying passengers. This could be done by asking people to give either Aadhaar or passport number at the time of booking flights. One of these two will be chosen.” said Aviation ministry official. For international flight bookings, the passenger identification system is already in place, which is done by verifying the passport details. Same system will be replicated for domestic flight bookings, too. The airlines have a system in place at present to deal with misbehaving and unruly passengers and what action should be taken against them. The Aadhar identification for domestic flights may ease and streamline passenger database to a large extend.