The Department of Immigration and Passport will not be able to deliver machine-readable passports (MRPs) to around 50 lakh Bangladeshi expatriates currently residing around the world, especially the Middle East.
The issue was discussed at a meeting last week at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, presided over by the ministry’s Bilateral, Training and Consular Secretary Mustafa Kamal.
At the meeting, Muhammad Zulqar Nain, director general of the minitry’s consular and welfare wing, said he had taken initiatives to extend the deadline to deliver MRPs to the expatriates, set by the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO), from December 2015 to the end of 2017, meeting sources said.
The DG already asked the Bangladeshi embassies and missions abroad if the time could be extended in this regard, the sources added.
In response to Zulqar Nain’s statement, former DG of Immigration and Passport Abdul Mabud said: “The government fixed the deadline following the ICAO’s instruction. If we want to extend the duration of use for the hand-written passports, an inter-ministerial meeting needs to take place regarding this matter,”
He also said it was not possible to deliver MRPs to all Bangladeshi expatriates across the world within the current deadline.
The Dhaka Tribune contacted State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal yesterday in this regard, who said: “We are considering different options about providing MRPs to the 50 lakh Bangladeshi expatriates within December 2015.”
The government has already signed deals with a Malaysian firm and a local firm to supply the MRPs to the expatriates, but the process has been very slow.
In another development, 14 Home Ministry officials, who were selected to supervise and monitor MRP enrolment in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, were given only one-month visa, whereas they need at least three months to do their job, sources at the Home Ministry said.
If these officials do not get visa for more than a month, many Bangladeshi expatriates may be forced to come back home, the sources said.
The government launched the MRP project on April 1, 2010. Besides the people in the country, the government has introduced the MRPs at 41 missions abroad so far.
