Tools To India

Document Guides

The legitimate official process for each document — what can be done online, what needs a physical visit, what it costs, and where the real portal is.

Certificates

Civic

Employment

Financial

Identity

Travel

Staying safe with official documents

  • Check the address bar. Genuine government portals end in gov.in or nic.in. Almost every document service is heavily imitated by lookalike sites, many of which exist to harvest personal data.
  • Never share an Aadhaar OTP with a person. No government office, bank, gas agency or utility will ever ask you to read one out. Every legitimate use of an OTP is entered by you, on a portal you opened yourself.
  • Use masked Aadhaar or a Virtual ID when you have to hand over a copy. Both are issued by UIDAI and both are valid.
  • Government services are cheap or free. A Common Service Centre may charge a small notified assistance fee. Anyone quoting a large fee to "process" or "fast-track" a routine document is not offering a legitimate service.
  • Fetch documents into DigiLocker. Documents issued directly by the authority into DigiLocker are digitally signed and legally at par with the original — which is more than can be said for the photocopy in your file.