The government has moved again to procure two million more machine readable passports (MRPs) on an emergency basis.
The MRPs will be procured from the existing supplier through the direct procurement method (DPM).
Under this process, the government agency can buy anything from any supplier without following the open tender process.
Officials at the Security Services Division (SSD) of the Ministry of Home Affairs, which initiated the move, said the failure to introduce e-passports has prompted them to go for such a costly procurement without tender.
Sources said the SSD has already moved its proposal to the Cabinet Economic Affairs Committee for approval to procure two million passport booklets and lamination foils from the existing UK-based supply firm -- De La Rue Int Ltd -- to prepare the MRPs.
They said two million passport booklets and same amount of lamination foils will cost about Tk41 crore.
They mentioned that this will be the third time that the SSD is going to procure MRPs through the DPM process due to the failure to introduce e-passports on time.
Initially, De La Rue was awarded contract for 15 million passports. Then again, it was given order to supply five million booklets and five and a half million lamination foils for five million passports under a second variation order.
Earlier, the government had fixed January 1 for introducing e-passport and gave Germany-based firm Veridos GmbH was contract to introduce it.
However, they failed to introduce e-passports, so the government had to procure about two million passports at a cost of Tk40.71 crore.
The stocks of those passport booklets and foils are going to be finished within five to six months as every month about 200,000 MRPs are being issued.
Officials said the German firm again missed the second deadline of July 1 to introduce e-passports, which prompted them to continue with MRPs by directly procuring those from the existing firm under DPM process.
