Electronic passport (E-Passport) will be introduced by December this year, finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Wednesday said. “We hope that e-passport will be introduced by December. We will go advance level to e-passport from MRP (machine readable passport). The home minister has confirmed the meeting that e-passport will be introduced within December. The Prime Minister may inaugurate it,” the finance minister said following the 20th meeting of the purchase committee held at the secretariat in the capital.
Besides, the cabinet committee on economic affairs has approved five projects proposals including ‘Construction of Outer Ring Road (Southern part)’ through PPP. The project aims to construct elevated ring road surrounding capital Dhaka in order to ease transportation with different parts of the country and reduce traffic congestion in the capital as well. The project would be implemented under government to government (G2G) deal in cooperation with Marubeni Corporation of Japan through public private partnership (PPP).
The Road Transport and Highways Division has prepared the project proposal. The Roads and Highways Department will implement the project in 2020-23 timeframe.
According to sources, three routes of the toll-based road aim to divert possible growing number of traffic from the southern part of the country with the commissioning of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge.