JS bodies split on MRP, e-passport

The parliamentary standing committee on home ministry yesterday asked the government to go on with the machine-readable passport (MRP) project instead of introducing electronic passports now as recommended earlier by another parliamentary committee.
The committee said the government has to introduce MRP by April 2010 to comply with the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) requirements.
"Our people will not be able to go abroad unless we start the task of issuing machine-readable passport within the stipulated time of April 2010.
"Therefore, the committee asked the authority concerned to go on with the MRP project instead of introducing e-passport," Major General (retd) MA Salam, chairman of the committee, told reporters after the meeting at the parliament building.
The parliamentary standing committee on planning ministry on October 28 asked the government to cancel the MRP project and introduce e-passport instead to save public money.
The chief of the committee Col (retd) Oli Ahmed also said electronic passports will be used worldwide after MRPs become invalid in 2014. It is undesirable to spend several hundred crores taka for issuing two types of passport, he said.
"The committee today mulled the issue of introducing e-passport. But we dropped the idea for now as the standard and guidelines of e-passport are yet to be fixed. Besides, e-passport has not been made mandatory," Salam, also a ruling Awami League lawmaker, said.
The committee chief said they have been given assurance that issuing of MRP will start within the set time of April 2010 by the ICAO.
It would not take more time and money to convert MRP into e-passport, he said, quoting the project director of MRP who was also present in the standing committee meeting.
The retired general also said that they have asked the home ministry to form a coordination committee comprised of ministry officials concerned to work on controlling city's traffic jams.