Country enters e-passport era

Bangladesh yesterday became the first country in South Asia to enter the era of electronic passports.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally unveiled the e-passport and launched the automated border control management programme at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital.

The Department of Immigration and Passport will start issuing the passports from regional passport offices in the capital’s Uttara and Jatrabari, and from divisional passport and visa office in Agargaon, according to officials.

“General people will be able to apply for the e-Passport from today (Thursday),” e-Passport Project Director Brig Gen Saidur Rahman Khan told The Daily Star yesterday. 

General passports will be delivered in 15 days, while urgent passports will be delivered in seven days. In case of re-issue, applicants will get their passports within two days, said the project director.

“Initially, we will start delivering e-passports on a limited scale, and it will be started across the country gradually,” he added.

Machine-readable passports will remain valid even after the e-passport inauguration, but will be phased out gradually, according to DIP officials.

TWO TYPES OF E-PASSPORTS

There will be two types of e-passports -- one with 48 pages and another with 64 pages, and their tenure will be five years or 10 years.

Separate fees have been set for two types of passports. For general application for 48-page five-year validity passport, the fee will be Tk 3,500 and urgent fee Tk 5,000. For 10-year validity, the fee will be Tk 5,500 for general and Tk 7,000 for urgent.

The fees will be Tk 5,500 and Tk 7,000 respectively for general application for 64-page five-year validity passports. The fees will jump to Tk 7,500 and Tk 9,000 respectively for 10-year-validity for 64-page passport.

If the passport is required most urgently within two days, the fees will be Tk 9,000 for 10-year-validity for 48-page passport, and Tk 12,000 for 64-page passport. The fees will be Tk 7,500 and Tk 10,500 for 48-page passports.

An additional 15 percent vat will be applicable with the fees, the fees chart added.

Earlier, general application fees for machine-readable passports for five-year-validity was Tk 3,450, and emergency fees was Tk 6,900 including vat.

People living abroad will also get their e-passports within the same delivery period, but they will not be eligible for the most urgent facilities even for re-issue service, said official.

The government has set separate fees for Bangladesh missions abroad, starting from US$30 to highest $225, depending on profession and category of application. The passport fees could be paid directly using debit and credit cards.

Regarding the 10-year-validity, officials said applicants below 18 years of age or over 65, will not get the 10-year-validity e-passport.

E-passport application can be submitted online or manually after downloading the PDF form, and no one needs to attach any image, said officials, adding that applicants will not need to attest any documents to submit with the application.

FACIAL RECOGNITION IN 30 SECONDS

Biographical and biometric information of passport holders will remain safe in the e-passport chip. The information of passport holders and facial recognition will be verified automatically within 30 seconds through digital signature, according to officials.

With the e-passport launch, 50 eGates will also be installed at 27 immigration check posts at international airports and land ports. The eGates are automated self-service barriers which use the data stored in the chip in biometric passports to verify identity.

Primarily, diplomatic and official passport holders, CIPs (Commercially Important Persons), tax card holders, and Bangladeshi pilot and crew members will be able to use the eGates.

According to officials, the e-passport will not have two information pages like the MRP Passport. Their will be a polymer chip and antenna on the front page with the passport holders name basic information.

There will be also machine-readable option on the passports, so that immigration officers can complete the immigration process by scanning the page if no eGates re available.