No more papers ! No more papers!!

No more papers! No more papers!!

I remember those days when I used to search desperately for my mark sheets, degree certificates, and other official documents that I had missed or misplaced somewhere. Probably most of us would have faced this situation! Filing everything starting from the birth certificate, mark sheets and other documents has become the biggest task for everyone. So much of papers inside one file, and sometimes, one more file for maintaining the xerox copy of the same. Number of file increases depends on the number of family members! Not only in home, people in Business organisation needs lots of time and effort for filing and a separate space for keeping it safe.

How many files ? How many papers ? How much of efforts required to maintain all these? It was challenging right?

Forget the physical lockers that we used to keep our files in a safer place. Its time to use Digital lockers.

Digital lockers??

Yeah!! Digi lockers is a digital service, an initiative by the government(Ministry of communications and Information Technology) where citizens can store all the official certificates and government documents in one space such as driving license, RC, Pan card, passport, degree certificates, mark sheets, birth certificate, job offer letter, work experience letter etc,. More or less it is like Google drive and Google photos. But Digi locker can do several more things than just uploading and storing documents. All these documents can be accessed anywhere at anytime when required.

Digi locker allows you to send the documents to the respective people. Also it allows you to get the documents issued by various government agencies. These are the 2 main components in Digi locker.

• Uploaded documents- where you can upload and send required documents to government agencies
• Issued documents- where the government agencies as issuer can issue the e-documents to the citizens

Those days students had to carry their physical certificates to schools and colleges for verification and submission. And colleges had to verify it manually and store each student's file in a safer place till completion of course. Why to do such a tedious work that too with the fear of missing the documents? This process can be done digitally. Students can send it through Digi locker, like wise colleges and universities can also issue mark sheets and certificates to the students through Digi locker. For availing this service both citizens and government agencies should get registered with Digi locker. Even for the citizens who seeks employment, on an average they will have at least 20-25 certificates to carry along wherever they are going. Once the job seekers and the companies get registered with Digi locker, all necessary documents can be uploaded and verified instantaneously.

Digitized things saves our time and reduces the efforts. Just think.. How long does it takes to get a new pan card or passport? In the manual process you may have to travel to the respective places during verification. Consulting an agent will be an additional cost. you will have to wait at least 2-3 weeks to get it issued. Digi locker allows you to do it by yourself.

Hospitals are now planning to use Digi locker for storing cancer patients test reports and medical documents which would reduce their efforts. Patients would be provided with a unique number id so that they can share and access reports to other hospitals if they are shifting.

MUST KNOW about Digi locker

• Aadhar card is must to sign up into Digi locker
• Should not share your Digi locker details with anyone
• Digi locker should not be accessed from public WiFi hot spot
• Total storage space is 1 GB
• Digi locker app is available on play store.

You can access through mobile phone as well. You might think - What if lost my mobile ? Will my documents be misused ? Absolutely not! It is completely secured. It will log out automatically if extended inactivity is detected.

But What about driving license ?

Ideally Digi locker documents are accepted as valid, under the IT act 2000. And according to the official FAQ it can be used for spot verification of driving license. For this purpose traffic police should not deny it. But Indian traffic police does not accept DL and RC in Digilocker

Here I am adding this link to highlight the fact that traffic police will not accept a Digi locker copy of driving license. https://www.thequint.com/news/india/show-the-digilocker-app-to-modi-police-tells-biker

However Digitalization will make processes easier. Lets happily use papers only for making paper boats!!
Sign up link https://digilocker.gov.in/