As a result of various measures taken by the government, the lengthy process of acquiring a passport has been getting shorter for the past couple of years. It became particularly easier for people that needed to renew an expired passport. Earlier this year when Khadiza Afrin had been dreading to go to the Agargaon passport office for renewing her passport, she mentally prepared herself for a long day ahead, expecting to experience something similar when she applied for her passport for the first time.
But to Khadiza’s pleasant surprise, the whole process was completed under an hour, starting from collecting and filling the form, paying the bank fees, and submitting it to the right counter to get a receipt. This was starkly different from when she applied for her passport, at which time it took nearly five hours of waiting in lines and running around between floors.
The expediency was achieved by simply segregating the first time passport applicants and the renewal applicants, who do not need to submit a heap of documents. With no documents to check and no checklist to ascertain, the renewal applications require minimal time to process.
But the Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) has recently reorganized the process at the Agargaon centre to have renewal applicants stand in the same series of lines, causing hours of unnecessary delays. 
A renewal application form waiting to be submitted at the final counter
On Sunday, when Khan Md Saddam finally came out of the Agargaon passport office, it was 3pm. He had been standing in lines for at least four hours with other applicants, most of whom were there to get a new passport. Earlier, when he got in the first line at 11am he had no idea how long it would take. After about an hour he got past the first counter with the first stamp seal, which appears to provide a serial number.
But the number is not meant to dictate serial in the next line, as Saddam found out when everyone jumbled in the next room and proceeded to the next counter. With so many people and only one counter to process their applications, it seemed to Saddam that he might not be able to submit his application on that day. “I took leave from my work to come here,” Saddam said. “It will be difficult to come back another day for this,” he said.
The Agargaon passport office in Dhaka used to have 8-10 thousand people flocking in for passport applications. But two years ago the Department of Immigration and Passport decided to open up four more centres in Dhaka for these services. This took some of the load off of the Agargaon centre and expedited the process. But the average time for completing the submission seemed to have improved little at the Agargaon centre compared to 2012, when Khadiza went there to submit her application.
“I wish I could go to the Uttara centre. There are fewer applicants there and it is faster, but they won’t accept mine as the designated centre for me is Agargaon,” Saddam said. The reason for the long wait is obvious, as Saddam quickly pointed out. There is only one person at the second counter to handle hundreds of people.
For the renewal applications, the first two counters simply put a stamp on the paper. The third counter checks if the serial entered earlier matches with the form and actual data entry takes place at the final counter, where the applicants are handed the receipt. But it takes over three hours to get past the first three counters, whereas the actual handling time at all of the three counters are mere seconds. The rest of the time is spent waiting in line. 
Instructions are displayed in multiple places within the building at Agargaon passport office
The Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) has so far issued nearly two crore MRP passports, Director General of DIP Major General Masud Rezwan said earlier this year. With a huge number of population to serve, it becomes increasingly tougher for the authorities to continue services efficiently without full digitization. “There will be no need for this wait if the process was truly digitized,” said Faisal Mahmud, who was also waiting in the same lines as Saddam to submit a renewal application.
The lack of a separate service point for the renewal applicants is now causing people to wait hours for something that could be done under an hour. Why the Agargaon centre or DIP decided to do this is not known. A number of directors with the Agargaon centre, as well as the offices of director general and additional director general could not be reached on the phone numbers provided on the website of DIP.
“I heard from my sister-in-law that renewal process was quick,” said Faisal Mahmud. “I thought that the country has changed and you no longer have to wait hours in line. But now I feel reassured that nothing has changed,” he quipped.
Thousands more like Faisal and Saddam need to renew their passport every day. Earlier this month, DIP offered a service of renewal of passports within five hours from the organization’s stall at the National Development Fair. DIP received a massive response to the offer, with its stall re-issuing at least 5,000 passports on the first day of the fair. ‘The Super Express Service’ costs Tk6,900, more than double the regular fees of Tk3,450. With the regular service, the delivery time is typically 21-22 days.
