The Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) is failing in a timely distribution of machine readable passports (MRPs) across the country. As a result, hundreds of thousands of passport seekers are inconvenienced by longer waiting periods past the expected time of delivery, creating a huge backlog of MRPs. Even applicants filing for urgent MRPs are becoming victims of delayed deliveries, costing them additional time on top of the additional fees.
Sylhet is home to a large number of Bangladeshi expatriates living/working abroad who require a timely renewal of passports to ensure smooth international travel. These expatriate Bangladeshis are the worst sufferers of the current MRP crisis. The processes of acquiring foreign visas as well as renewing old ones are slowing down due to the delay in getting their MRPs. Many urgent foreign visa seekers for various purposes ,including medical treatment, are also faced with the same predicament.
Applicants flocking to the regional passport office with complaints are seen voicing their anger over the delay in regular passport deliveries.
Tarek Ahmed, a resident of Dora village in Golapganj upazila, said: “I had submitted an application for an emergency MRP on September 15 which should’ve been delivered to me by September 24. But I am yet to receive it. As a result, I have missed the application deadline for my work visa in Qatar.”
Mazed Ahmed, a resident of Chondogram in Beanibazar, said he had filed for an MRP on September 14 so that he could visit India with his friends but he was still waiting for his passport.
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Under the normal rules, an applicant is supposed to receive an emergency passport within seven working days of his/her application submission. On paper, the maximum official waiting time for a person to receive his passport is 21 days. But for months on end, applicants have been waiting for their passports past the scheduled time.
Speaking on the issue, SM Zakir Hossain, superintendent of the Sylhet regional passport office, said: “It is our responsibility to serve migrants in Sylhet. However, we are able to issue only a few hundred passports every day against a daily demand of around 2,000 passports.
“Due to the low volume printing of MRPs in the Dhaka office most of the applicants do not get their passports on time.”
However, there is no problem in e-passport deliveries from the Sylhet regional office, the official said.
He further said that gradually MRPs were to be discontinued and so the government was trying to shift the focus over to e-passports.
On August 22, the Department of Immigration and Passports (DIP) started enrolment of e-Passport and MRP (new and re-issue) on a limited scale, after a five-month hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
