Digi Yatra to expand to 41 airports by 2025 end: CEO Khadakbhavi

“We are awaiting launch at four more airports, and in the next three to six months, Digi Yatra will go live at 13 more airports. Upcoming new airports like Navi Mumbai International Airport and Noida International Airport will go live with Digi Yatra directly,” said Suresh Khadakbhavi, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Digi Yatra Foundation, in an interview.

Launched in December 2022, Digi Yatra has a user base of over 14 million now. The services are currently live at eight private and 16 Airports Authority of India-operated airports.

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The Digi Yatra CEO said that there are 25,000-30,000 new enrolments every day.

“We’ve enabled over 60 million journeys so far and by the end of 2025, the use base will be around 20 million. The adoption rate averages between 30% and 35% across Indian airports,” said Khadakbhavi.

In the coming few months, Digi Yatra services are expected to be expanded for foreign nationals as well. This expansion will be based on the back of a roll-out of e-passport services. On 24 June, the government announced the roll-out of e-passport services for Indian nationals. The e-passports are enabled with a chip with biometric details.

Digi Yatra is currently being tested with e-passport enrolment, which will also enable foreign nationals to use the services. Currently, only Indian nationals can enroll for the services through their Aadhaar card, driving license or voter ID card.

“For example, a foreign citizen working out of India can enroll on Digi Yatra by using their e-passport credentials. Just like Indian nationals, foreign nationals will be able to use the services for domestic flights,” said Khadakbhavi.

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The Digi Yatra Foundation is in talks with the International Civil Aviation Organization (Icao) to sign an agreement for the same. After the agreement, there will be access to verify data with ICAO’s Public Key Directory (PKD), which would enable a secure exchange of cryptographic keys related to e-passports. 

Khadakbhavi is looking at a timeline of three months to implement the rollout.

While Digi Yatra will be expanded for foreign nationals taking domestic flights, enabling this for international flights looks difficult for the moment, Khadakbhavi said. With the involvement of multiple stakeholders like the ministry of external affairs, the Bureau of Immigration and the ministry of home affairs, enabling such services is a tricky thing, as per the Digi Yatra CEO.

“When we talk about the international process, it means automated border control, which is a sensitive area. We would not want to fail in this and a good process needs to be defined,” he said. He also said that with European Union building EU Digital Identity Wallet, there could be interoperability in the future.

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There have been concerns around data privacy in the past including sharing and usage of data. However, the Digi Yatra Foundation has maintained its stance that the data is stored in a user’s phone and the data shared with the airport is purged in 24 hours.

“We are not storing any personal data on any central location; the entire data is decentralized. If one wants to hack the database, they will have to hack all the phones of all users,” added Khadakbhavi.