The passport authorities are expecting to complete issuing machine-readable passports (MRPs) to all non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) within the stipulated time frame as they achieved the milestone of issuing 10 million MRPs on Thursday.
It has taken over five years to achieve the milestone since April 1, 2010 when the authorities started issuing the MRPs.
“We hope to issue MRPs for NRBs by November 24 this year,” Director General of Immigration and Passports NM Zeaul Alam told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday. “Our strength has improved a lot as we added new printers.”
He said some 3.5 million NRBs remain to be provided with MRPs by the November deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, following which the expatriates would not be allowed to move without MRPs.
There are widespread apprehensions that the NRBs would have to face trouble as the authorities would not be able to issue MRPs within the next seven months.
The DG said the capacity to print MRPs now increased to 20,000 pieces a day as compared to a daily average demand between 12,000 and 14,000, indicating that the authorities have now the capacity to meet the deadline.
“The passport authorities, Bangladesh missions and the outsourcing companies are now working so we could provide MRPs to the NRBs within the deadline,” Zeaul Alam said.
He sees a challenge that the MRPs issued five years back are now coming for re-issuance. He, however, expects that the authorities would be able to face the challenges as the government has approved procuring two more printing machines.
