The government has asked the passport and immigration department to issue new Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) in 15 days for emergency and in 30 days for regular before getting police verification reports to contain sufferings of the passport seekers home and abroad. The decision came on Sunday at a meeting held at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) with Principal Secretary Shaikh Md Wahid Uz Zaman in the chair.
The government has taken the decision at that time, when about one lakh people were facing serious inconvenience due to delay in getting new passports in the name of lengthy process of police verification for last eight months.
A high official of the home ministry told The Independent that the ministry would issue a circular this week in this regard to reduce the people suffering of getting new passports.
“We have already prepared a draft of the circular, which is likely to be issued on Monday,” he said.
Mohammad Abdul Mabud, director general of the passport and immigration department, said they will start to issue new passports on the basis of merit of reasons considering people going out for overseas jobs and medical treatment before receiving police verification after getting circular from the home ministry.
“It was a practice earlier to issue emergency passports pending verifications, which helped people a lot,” he said.
Sources said, at least 100,000 applications for new passports are pending before the passport offices across the country and old applications for more than three months with an uncertain future are creating frustration among the applicants.
Every day new passport seekers are thronging various passport offices in districts and regional offices, even in the capital, in search of their passports to their promising land.
But they are going back home frustrated without knowing when they would get the little book from the authorities concerned, sources informed.
A high official of the passport department said that they could not issue at least 90,000 applicants of MRP because of non vitality of police verification reports within the stipulated time to provide the passports.
“As a result, a large number of people are waiting to join their overseas jobs,” he said.
“Authorities concerned should take emergency measures to remove the gridlock so that we can issue new passports to the people as early as possible,” he added.
A new passport is supposed to be issued in 15 days for a fee of Tk 3,000, while the emergency in seven days for a fee of Tk 6,000.
A senior official of the passport department said that at least 26 lakh MRPs had been issued till date.
MRPs were introduced in the country on April 1, 2010 to speed up clearance and improve security for travellers.
The charge for obtaining an MRP, on an emergency basis, is Tk 6,000, while a normal passport costs Tk 3,000.
Courtesy of The Independent
