Despite an increase in the machine readable passport (MRP) issuance capacity, hazards are still standing in the way of having a passport by hundreds of eager applicants at various passport offices in the country as they have to wait for long to complete the procedures of submitting applications. The Agargaon Passport Office receives on an average 3500 applications per day, along with its 22 regional offices, against the capacity to print 10,000 passports. However, the issuing capacity has failed to reduce the long queue due to a lack of enough booths for receiving passport fees, forms and taking photos. At the main passport office in Agargaon, the queues create chaos that leaves people helplessly looking for newer options like taking help of middlemen. Though officials claim that dominance of middlemen and corruption in the system has come down, the FE has found people desperately trying to find options upon being tired of standing in the queue. "We have tried our best to make issuance of machine readable passports to the people smoothly," said project director (PD) Mohammad Refayet Ullah. He said as the Agargaon office has started construction in one part of the building, the authorities could not provide space to accommodate the increasing pressure of passport seekers. The PD said the queue has increased due to hajj season as it is the high time to get prepared for the Muslims' largest congregation in Makkah. The officials said the trend of rushing to the Agargaon main passport office has led to the increase in the queue although there are two centres at Uttara and old part of Dhaka. Apart from the bank at the centre, there are eight banks in the city where applicants can pay passport fees to avoid the long queues, they added. The officials, however, have pointed out the project's failure to recruit enough manpower for the mess and felt the need for increase in the number of centres as per requirements of the passport-seeking people. Since the MRP project was inaugurated on June 1, 2010 under the Bangladesh Army supervision, the Passport Office issued 377,000 MRPs and increased its centres to 22 till date. It has around 400 staff which has doubled after the project began. Over 45 army people including 30 officials have been working under the project. The officials said the recruitment was poor against the demand for over 1400 people for the passport offices. A proposal of recruiting 1,431 persons has been sent to the Establishment Ministry. Defending the allegation, the PD said despite seeking space and adequate infrastructure to set up the new passport centres, those have not been provided by the government. He said the project has all equipment necessary to issue MRPs for the rest 12 centres, but could not set up those due to space and poor infrastructure. The implementation of the MRP project started within the timeframe of International Air Transport Association (IATA) on April 1, 2010. Under the project, all regional offices and foreign missions of Bangladesh have been equipped to issue digital and internationally acceptable passports.
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