Govt to launch e-passport in December
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said e-passport will be launched in December this year.
“Germany based contractor who is working on e-passport, will complete within December this year. Then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the e-passport in December,” he said.
The minister was talking to reporters after the meetings of Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) and Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) at the Cabinet Division on Wednesday (September 25).
Kamal informed that the e-passport could not be launched in July. Germany based contractor has moved far ahead in this regard. Our home minister assured the meeting that all necessary works for distributing e-passport will be completed within December this year.
“We have reached at the end of the MRP passport. We hope we will move from MRP to e-passport from December”, he added.
The minister said that the CCEA meeting has approved the proposal for procuring 2 million machine readable passport (MRP) booklets and 2 million lamination foils. This is the last edition of MRP. The procurement will be under Direct Procurement Method (DPM) at a cost of Taka 41 crore”.
Under the project 'Introduction of Bangladesh E-Passport and Automatic Border Control Management', e-passport will be given to the citizens. The total cost of the project is Tk 4,636 crore.
The Department of Immigration and Passport will implement the whole project from July in 2018 to June in 2028, with full government funding. A total of 30 million passports will be made in 10 years.
Of these, two million will be made in Germany. As a result, the passports of those who apply first will be made from Germany. Passport will be for a period of five and 10 years.
