Shah Alam Nur :Hand written passport (HWP) would be out of circulation from today (Tuesday), as the use of machine readable passports (MRP) has been made compulsory.According to International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), nobody would be able to travel abroad with hand written passport after November 24, 2015.Earlier, the ICAO had set November 24 as the deadline and after that nobody would be allowed to travel internationally without an MRP. The deadline makes MRP mandatory for nationals of all countries, including Bangladeshis.Jobs of more than seven million Bangladeshi migrant workers are at stake due to failure of converting their manual passports into MRP. The Bangladeshi migrant workers may lose their jobs if they failed to show MRP after the said deadline. According to the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training (BMET), there are nine million Bangladeshi migrant workers in different countries, of which about 3.6 million live in the KSA, 2.3 million in UAE and over 0.7 million in Malaysia.The Bangladeshi migrant workers across the world will be treated as illegal ones if they failed to show the MRP.Sources said, in recent times many countries have stopped accepting the handwritten passport as per the international aviation rules. And they have asked Bangladeshi migrant workers to collect the MRP for updating their migrant status, including visa renewal.In 2010, the government took an initiative to provide the MRP to all migrant workers. But only 1,132,337 migrants have got the latest mandatory requirement for them.An official of Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and Overseas Employment (MoEWOE) said that with the present capacity, the authorities now could complete procedures for 13,000 applications only per day against demand for minimum 22,000 to meet the deadline.He said the Bangladesh mission in Riyadh has been providing average 800 MRP per day while it needs to process a minimum of 8,000 to 10,000 to meet the deadline.If the present condition continues, the mission in KSA could issue about 150,000 MRPs. But the KSA is the largest destination for Bangladeshi migrants with more than 3.6 million there.NM Zeaul Alam, Director General of Department of Immigration and Passports said, their office needs adequate manpower and machinery since the MRP project was going slow.He said, they are very serious about providing MRPs to all of the migrant workers as the government has turned to outsourcing.Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon said on Monday that an extension till December 2018 had been sought from the ICAO.He said, “Bangladesh has filed a difference with the ICAO and has requested an extension to use handwritten passports until December, 2018.”Menon said the main problem of meeting the current deadline are the thousands of illegal Bangladeshi expatriates living in various countries, and the migrant workers living in Saudi Arabia whose travel documents are held by their employers.According to the ICAO website, the requirement that non-MRPs expire by November 24, 2015 applies to all types of passports-Ordinary, Diplomatic and Service. However, it does not apply to temporary travel documents or passports of limited validity in cases of emergency, which usually have a short validity period and are issued by consulates to distressed nationals so that they could return to their home country.
