The Attestation Cell in the CPV Division of the Ministry has been providing attestation services for authentication of educational, commercial and personal documents of individuals for personal and commercial use in countries abroad. Apart from this, Indian business establishments also need commercial documents attested by MEA for export as well as for other business purposes abroad.
Authentication is of two types: Normal Attestation and Apostille Certification. Apostille certification is done when documents are to be used in countries which are members of the Hague Apostille Convention. While Normal Attestation is free, a fee of Rs. 50/- per document/per page, as the case may be, is charged by way of Postal Order for affixing Apostille stickers. The work of collection and delivery of documents for attestation/apostille by the Ministry of External Affairs has been outsourced to five Companies since July 2012. These companies charge a service fee of 22/- (Personal), 18/- (Educational) and 16/-(Commercial) per document.
For the period January to December 2015, the Attestation Cell in CPV Division attested 3,53,646 General and 1,74,878 Commercial documents and apostilled 4,36,601documents for use in the Apostille member countries. In addition, 34, 724 documents were attested/apostilled at the four MEA Branch Secretariats at Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and Guwahati during this period. The attestation of some types of consular documents is also done by Indian Missions/Posts for Indian citizens living abroad.
