The Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase on day approved a proposal for procuring two million Machine Readable Passports (MRP) booklets along with two million lamination foils from ID Global Solution Limited (former De la Rue International Limited) on direct purchase method with an estimated cost of around Tk 53.04 crore, reports BSS.
The approval came from a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase held at the Cabinet Division in Bangladesh Secretariat with Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, the finance minister said the proposal from the Department of Immigration and Passports has been given approval by the Purchase Committee to meet the gap between demand and supply of MRPs in a speedy manner.
He said that currently the demand of MRPs is very high and the Bangladesh embassies and high commissions abroad are facing the problem of shortage of passports. “So, we are procuring some 20 lakh passports to meet the immediate requirements.”
Kamal said that alongside the MRP’s, the government is also going for having e-passports as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate a project to this end soon.
The finance minister said until the government goes for delivering e-passports in full-fledge, it will have to carry on with the operations of MRPs as this sort of passports are acceptable to everywhere in the world and there is no question about it.
Answering to a question, Kamal informed that the operations of the e-passport is still at the primary stage and the company which would be entrusted to deliver the e-passports would initially supply 500 e-passports a day and then 2000 e-passports per day.