Report outlining technical aspects of DIP submitted to ministry
Sunday, 17 May 2009
Mahmuda Shaolin
The technical committee of the Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) submitted its report to the home ministry Thursday outlining the technical aspects of introducing machine readable passport (MRP) by April, 2010.
After approval from the home ministry, the DIP is expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with armed forces for the implementation of the MRP project in July this year, said a senior DIP official.
The committee comprising representatives from the armed forces, DIP, special branch, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and Bangladesh Computer Society (BCS) prepared the report for immediate implementation of the MRP project.
"DIP has submitted the report to the home ministry Thursday and we're hopeful about getting the ministry's approval soon," DIP director general (DG) Abdur Rob Howlader told the FE.
The government is under international pressure to replace manually processed passport by April 2010.
On March 19, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the much-awaited Tk 3.50 billion machine-readable passport (MRP) and visa project and decided to implement the project in cooperation with the armed forces.
The government decided to involve the armed forces in the MRP and visas project because they have successfully prepared the national identity card and voter list.
In addition, since the armed forces has all the equipment, utilised in preparing the national ID card and voter list, both the cost and time could be saved in completing the work.
Bangladesh will have to introduce MRP to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements by April 2010.
If the country fails to become a member of the ICAO, Bangladesh citizens' access to international manpower markets as well as obtaining all types of visas would be at risk.
Some 115 out of 187 member nations of the ICAO, including India and Pakistan, have so far issued machine-readable passports to their citizens.
The DIP official said that the MRP would meet all international standards as instructed by the ICAO and as a result no country would harass Bangladeshi travellers including workers or impound the manually processed passports on any grounds.
Machine Readable passports bear a zone where some of the information otherwise written in textual form is in strings of alphanumeric characters, printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition.
The technical committee of the Department of Immigration and Passport (DIP) submitted its report to the home ministry Thursday outlining the technical aspects of introducing machine readable passport (MRP) by April, 2010.
After approval from the home ministry, the DIP is expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with armed forces for the implementation of the MRP project in July this year, said a senior DIP official.
The committee comprising representatives from the armed forces, DIP, special branch, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and Bangladesh Computer Society (BCS) prepared the report for immediate implementation of the MRP project.
"DIP has submitted the report to the home ministry Thursday and we're hopeful about getting the ministry's approval soon," DIP director general (DG) Abdur Rob Howlader told the FE.
The government is under international pressure to replace manually processed passport by April 2010.
On March 19, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved the much-awaited Tk 3.50 billion machine-readable passport (MRP) and visa project and decided to implement the project in cooperation with the armed forces.
The government decided to involve the armed forces in the MRP and visas project because they have successfully prepared the national identity card and voter list.
In addition, since the armed forces has all the equipment, utilised in preparing the national ID card and voter list, both the cost and time could be saved in completing the work.
Bangladesh will have to introduce MRP to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements by April 2010.
If the country fails to become a member of the ICAO, Bangladesh citizens' access to international manpower markets as well as obtaining all types of visas would be at risk.
Some 115 out of 187 member nations of the ICAO, including India and Pakistan, have so far issued machine-readable passports to their citizens.
The DIP official said that the MRP would meet all international standards as instructed by the ICAO and as a result no country would harass Bangladeshi travellers including workers or impound the manually processed passports on any grounds.
Machine Readable passports bear a zone where some of the information otherwise written in textual form is in strings of alphanumeric characters, printed in a manner suitable for optical character recognition.