Bangladesh is planning to start the distribution of digital passports, also known as e-Passports, in June this year to ease immigration activities.
The e-Passport has an embedded electronic microprocessor chip which contains biometric information used to authenticate the identity of the bearer.
Sources at the Department of Immigration and Passports (DIP) said, e-Passports will have 38 types of security features. Data currently available in the Machine Readable Passport (MRP) database will be transferred to e-Passports.
Preparations to start e-Passport distribution are almost complete, sources said.
Agreement signed
On July 19 last year, Bangladesh and Germany signed an agreement following Dhaka's decision to issue electronic passports alongside the machine readable ones.
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Implementation of the project - Introduction of e-Passport and Automated Border Control Management in Bangladesh - started from July 2018 and is expected to continue until June 2028 with the government's own funding.
"We plan to issue e-Passports by June," Project Director Brig Gen Saidur Rahman Khan said.
Delay
E-Passport distribution was scheduled to start in December last year but was pushed back to March 2018, as the authorities concerned failed to begin the work at the stipulated time.
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Brig Gen Khan said arranging funds for the project delayed the work. "The project was approved by Ecnec on June 21 last year and the national budget for 2018-19 was also proposed in the same month. So, it took time to arrange the funds for the project," he said.
Various complications also arose during the work, he noted, saying such delay was acceptable.
10 years’ validity
Sources at Home Ministry said the decision to keep e-Passport valid for 10 years is final but its fees are yet to be fixed. "The Home Ministry is working on it," Khan said.
DIP sources said the government initially planned to issue two million e-Passports printed in Germany. Later, it decided to print the e-Passports at home.
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"We are setting up a world-class printing factory in Uttara. The work is at the final stage," the project director said.
He further said 24 million MRPs have been printing so far.
"Initially, we'll start issuing e-Passports from Dhaka. The distribution of MRP will continue from other regional offices until they start issuing e-Passports," he said, adding that the existing MRPs will be accepted during their valid periods.
DIP sources said the process to install e-gates has already begun at every airport and land port across the country to facilitate the use of e-Passports.
