ZCZC
BSS-14
E-PASSPORT-PROJECT
Govt initiates move to issue e-passports
DHAKA, June 11, 2018 (BSS) – The government has taken a big move to issue
about three crore higher technology-based e-passports for the citizens of the
country aiming to make Bangladeshi passports more safe and secured.
The Department of Immigration and Passports under the Ministry of Home
Affairs will implement a project titled, ‘Bangladesh e-Passport and
formulation of automated border control management’ to issue e-passports. The
project costs about Taka 4,636 crore to be entirely borne from the state
exchequer.
“The Planning Commission has already received a draft project proposal to
this end and after necessary formalities, the project is likely to be placed
before the ECNEC meeting soon,” said a senior Planning Commission official.
Talking to BSS, he said the project is included as a new unapproved
project without allocation in the revised Annual Development Programme of the
outgoing fiscal (FY18) and it is scheduled to be implemented during July 2018
to June 2028.
The project area covers the main office of the Department of Immigration
and Passports in Dhaka, Diplomatic Passport Office, data centre, passport
assembly line, personalisation centre and training centre in Dhaka.
The project will also be implemented at all the 72 regional passport
offices in 64 districts, some 80 Bangladesh missions abroad, disaster
recovery centre in Jashore, three international airports in the country,
automated border control system at two land ports and 22 other border control
system, 72 SB or DSB offices and the reference point at Munich in Germany.
According to the Home Ministry, the ECNEC approved the ‘Introduction of
machine readable passport and machine readable visa in Bangladesh’ project on
March 19, 2009. The government used to issue hand-made passports before April
1, 2010 for which the Bangladeshi citizens had to face various hassles in
traveling to other countries side by side there were also scopes for forgery.
On April 1, 2010, the government introduced the machine readable
passports (MRPs) and visas in line with the guideline of the International
Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), but the current MRPs do not have the
scope for preserving the print of 10 fingers of a passport holder in the
database.
Under the circumstances, there is a need to introduce the modern
technology-based e-passports in the country to further enhance the security
of the Bangladeshi passports apart from increasing the acceptability of
Bangladeshi passports.
E-passports are already in operation in about 119 countries across the
world since those are more safe and secured than the MRPs. Earlier, on April
24, 2016, during the inauguration of passport service week, Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina gave the directives for initiating the process for lunching e-
passports in the country.
Besides, during the visit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to Germany last
year, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Home
Ministry and the German-based organisation Veridos GmbH to launch e-passports
in Bangladesh.
Veridos GmbH will work with the Department of Immigration and Passports
on G-to-G basis and the Federal Ministry of Finance of Germany has certified
Veridos GmbH as a government agency.
The e-passports will have some 38 security features. The first chunk of
two million e-passports will come from Germany after printing and then the
rest of 28 million e-passports will be produced in Bangladesh after
installing necessary machineries here.
Data will be transferred to the e-passport database from the existing MRP
database. The tenure of an e-passport will be five years and 10 years
respectively while the e-passport book will contain 48 pages and 64 pages.
The main project operations include import of some 2 million e-passport
booklets while making the rest of 28 million booklets inside the country.
Besides, during the making of e-passports, demographic information, 10 finger
prints, photo of eye cornea and digital signatures will be collected.
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