The government has approved a proposal for raising fees for the machine-readable passport (MRP) by 33 per cent over the existing rates.
With the increase in the cost, the validity of such digital passports also has been extended twofold to ten years from the existing duration of five years.
Officials said Finance Minister AMA Muhith approved the proposal sent by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) last week.
Now the MoHA will take the next step on how to implement the increase in rates, coming at a time when massive work is underway for conversion of old passports to MRPs.
NM Zeaul Alam, Director-General and additional secretary at the Department of Immigration and Passports, said: "We're yet to get any formal orders on the matter (fee hike)."
The DG, however, said the department was ready to implement the new tariffs immediately after getting MoHA direction.
He also said the raise might take effect sometime next December.
"We've to raise the number of pages from the existing 48."
He also said there is some software-related development to be done.
However, people familiar with the developments told the FE that these new rates are the highest in South Asia in case of ordinary passports.
The fee applied for urgent issuance is almost equivalent to the rates in Nepal and Pakistan.
India, for 10-year-term passport, charges for ordinary passport fees in the equivalent of Tk 1,718, Sri Lanka Tk 1,388, Nepal Tk 3,538 and Pakistan Tk 3,906.
According to official documents, the new rate, expected to be approved by the finance minister this week, will be Tk 4,000 against the existing charge of Tk 3,000 for an ordinary passport.
The fee for an urgent issuance will be Tk 7,000 against the existing rate of Tk 6,000.
Officials familiar with the MRP process, which has been in operation since 2010, told the FE that 1.04 million more non-MRPs are still out of the MRP conversion.
After November 24 next, people will not be able to travel by using non-MRP old passports.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has set November 24, 2015 deadline for phasing out all non-machine-readable passports globally. After the deadline, no country will accept handwritten passport.
People working with manpower exporters said this would be a burden for the poor as 15 per cent value-added tax will be added up to the amount, taking the total cost to Tk 4,600 for an ordinary while Tk 8,050 for an urgent passport.
They said there are more costs in the overall processing to get a passport.
Police verification is required and middlemen also take a portion of money from the passport-seekers.
jasimharoon@yahoo.com
