1.5m workers in S Arabia to get MRPs by next year

The government approved on Thursday a proposal to provide 1.5 million machine readable passports (MRPs) to Bangladeshi workers living in Saudi Arabia by 2015.
The approval was given at the 10th meeting of the cabinet committee on public purchase at the conference room of the Cabinet Division on the day.
 "The government has set a deadline to provide MRPs to the migrants in Saudi Arabia by November 30, 2015. The Department of Immigration and Passports will prepare the passports," Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Division Md Nurul Karim told the meeting after the meeting.  
He said the Malaysian company 'IRIS Corporation Berhad Consortium' will collect data from the migrants and hand over the passports to the expatriate Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia with a service charge of US$09.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith presided over the meeting.
The meeting approved other proposals to purchase 12,650 wooden poles of different sizes at a cost of Tk 258 million, 64,500 SPC (spun pre-stressed concrete) poles of different sizes at a cost of Tk 625 million, 4,800 kilometre conductors (insulated) at a cost of Tk 600 million under the project  titled '1.8 Million Consumer Connection' through the Rural Electrification Expansion of the Rural Electrification Board.
The other approved projects include Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services Project (IDEA) at a cost of Tk 575 million. Tiger IT Bangladesh Limited will provide service and goods for supply, installation and maintenance of disaster recovery system for the Bangladesh Election Commission and extended the duration of 'Collection of MV taxes and fees through On-Line Banking System' at a cost of Tk 159.9 million.         
Purchase of 13,050 kilometre conductor bare and 1,64,560 SPC poles at a cost of Tk 382 million under the project '1.8 million consumer connection through rural electrification expansion' was also approved by the cabinet committee on purchase.  
Industries Minister Amir Hossain Amu, Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed, Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, State Minister for Home Affairs Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid, Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Towfiq- E- Elahi Chowdhury Bir Bikram and cabinet secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, among others, were present.