Indian citizens holding non-Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) whose validity is beyond November 25, 2015, will not be able to use theirs in obtaining valid visa for international travel, once the deadline is passed.
The deadline for phasing out of hand-written passports is November 24, 2015, following the global date issued by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. From November 25, 2015, passengers who do not possess a machine-readable passport may be denied visa or entry by foreign governments.
Non-MRPs constitute all those passports issued during mid-90s with a validity of 20 years, along with handwritten passports. The Indian government has been issuing machine-readable passports cine 2001.