UNB, Dhaka :
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday asked the officials to ensure timely delivery of passports without any delay and harassment.
“Make sure that the passport seekers get their passports in time. Do not harass them,” she said while opening issuance of Machine Readable Passport (MRP) in 33 regional passport offices over a videoconference with officials at Laxmipur from her official residence Ganabhaban. Regional passport offices at Laxmipur, Madaripur, Shariatpur, Rajbari and Naogaon will now be able to deliver MRP Apart from these five offices, currently 34 regional offices in 31 districts and 48 embassies/high commissions are delivering MRP. These offices have been given 9 million MRPs so far.
The prime minister also opened another 28 passport offices across the country. “Soon the people of 64 districts of the country will get their MRP from their own districts,” she said.
Hasina said that, to ease the passport issuing procedure the government has integrated the MRP with the software of national identity card (NID) of Election Commission. “This will make the passport delivery procedure easier,” she said.
She also said, that to make the deposit of passport fee easier, the government has
selected five private banks to receive the money through online banking. “People can deposit their fees in these private banks through credit card, debit card, mobile banking and directly in the bank booths,” she added.
Sheikh Hasina termed passport as a very important document for citizens and said, her government took the initiatives to provide digital and Machine Readable Passports to them to ensure easy living style.
She said, Bangladesh was lagging behind many countries in respect to the use of MRP and people willing to go abroad for business, education and treatment purpose were facing lot of difficulties. The government with the assistance of the Army solved the problem by introducing MRP, she said.
Sheikh Hasina said that her government has been working to advance the country maintaining the spirit of independence and wants to make distressed people happy as it was the dream of the Father of the Nation.
The Bangalee Nation struggled for 23 years and fought for 9 months in the War of Liberation under the leadership of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, she said.
That is why, her government has been working as a service provider to ensure demands of the general people as well as better their living standard, provide homes and land for the homeless and landless people, she added.
The Prime Minister said, the aim of the present government is to fulfill the basic rights of the people and make the nation well-educated equipped with modern, scientific and technical knowledge and skill.
She assured that her government would do whatever needed under Asrayan Project so that not a single family remains homeless and landless.
In this regard, she directed the local administration of Laxmipur district to find out homeless and landless people and send the list to the ministry so that proper steps could be taken to solve their problems.
Sheikh Hasina hoped that Bangladesh would be a developed and a peaceful country by the year 2041.
Director of the MRP project Brigadier General Masud Redwan gave a short description of the activities of the project while State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and local MPs spoke from Laxmipur.
Principal Secretary Abdus Sobhan Sikder, Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs Dr. Md. Mozammel Haque Khan, Press Secretary AKM Shameem Chowdhury and special assistant to the PM Mahbubul Hoque Shakil were among others present at Ganabhaban.
