The foreign missions have come under government's close watch aiming to expedite and complete the Machine Readable Passports (MRP) to Bangladeshi expatriates before the global deadline expires, officials said.
Under the move, a taskforce of the ministry of foreign affairs (MoFA) is monitoring the overall MRP delivery activities of its foreign missions around the globe, they said.
Presently, the taskforce is asking the mission's officials concerned to explain the causes behind slow delivery of MRPs. Then next course of actions are being taken by the authorities and missions concerned as per necessity, they added.
Besides, necessary resources and equipments are also being provided as per decision taken at the last inter-ministerial meeting held in the MoFA, sources said.
The authorities concerned are also giving all kinds of support, they said.
Required work stations and mobile units will be provided to some missions under the MRP project within the short span of time as per the proposed lists of the MoFA, an official of the department of immigration and passport (DIP) said.
"We are trying our best to provide MRPs to all Bangladeshi expatriates across the world according to the set deadline. So, the MRP delivery activities by different foreign missions are being monitored and aided by MoFA, Mustafa Kamal, Secretary (Bilateral, Training and Consular) of the MoFA told the FE on Tuesday.
The MRP delivery by the missions to Bangladeshi residents is going slowly due to lack of necessary equipments like outsourcing, work stations, funds and server complexities. As a result, it is not possible to issue MRP to the expatriates up to expectations, sources at the MoFA said.
MRPs being provided to Bangladeshi expatriates in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United States of America (USA) and European Union (EU) countries are unsatisfactory insufficient logistics support, sources said.
Some 54 foreign missions out of 56 are providing MRPs to Bangladeshi workers and professionals. "Nearly 1.4 million MRPs were collected by Bangladeshis living in different countries till date. In addition, more or less 1.5 million MRPs were sent to different missions," Muhammad Zulqar Nain, director general of consular and welfare wing of the MoFA said.
About 10.7 million (1 crore and 7 lakh) MRPs have been issued until December, 2014 for the country and foreign missions. The government launched the MRP and Machine Readable Visa (MRV) project since April, 2010, according to the DIP data.
All handwritten passports need to be converted to machine-readable passports by November 2015, the deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) to phase out all non-MRPs globally.
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