After a lapse of five months, the Department of Immigration and Passports is going to resume its normal passport delivery activities and receive new passports from Sunday (August 23), authorities concerned said.
The department stopped receiving new applications for passports from March 23 amid the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak.
About 3 lakh new passport applications have been piled up during this period. Many have not received their passports already delivered, police verification activities are also closed at this time, forcing expatriates to face huge problems.
In this situation, the authorities have announced to start the normal activities of the passport department from next Sunday. The Bangladesh Immigration and Passport Department has said that normal activities will be conducted on a limited scale in compliance with the hygiene rules.
Enrollment of MRP and e-passport (new and re-issuance) will be carried out to a limited extent following the hygiene rules, said a notification, signed by the director of the department (passport, visa and inspection) Md Saidur Rahman, on Thursday.
All have to maintain the health guidelines issued by the Directorate of General of Health Services, the notification said adding that all previous orders in this regard have been canceled immediately.
According to Passport Office sources, since the onset of coronavirus pandemic, applications for re-issuance, specially lost passports, expiration and correction of errors, and distribution of passports have been slow. Earlier, e-passport was introduced but it has also been closed due to the corona pandemic.
Even those who applied for e-passports before the Corona situation, did not get their passports.
However, as per the recommendation of the Bangladesh embassies outside the country, some urgent passports have been issued to the expatriate workers in some countries on an emergency basis.
According to officials, it was not possible to take photographs and fingerprints of the applicant in most cases after accepting the application for a new passport.
Besides, whose pictures and fingerprints were taken, were not verified by the police. Due to these reasons, thousands of applicants are waiting to get new passports.
Deputy Director of Passport Office (Passport and Planning Branch) Shahadat Hossain said, “Since the beginning of the Corona pandemic, distribution of e-passport and MRP passport applications has not been stopped. Currently, only passport renewal is underway.”
“Now, we will start full-fledged activities from next Sunday”, he added.
Director General of the Immigration and Passports Department Major General Mohammad Ayub Chowdhury, said, “To get a new passport, the applicant must provide fingerprints and it was quite risky under the present circumstances. Therefore, we stopped receiving applications for new passports. Now, we will start the activities maintaining hygiene rules.”
According to Passport Department sources, usually, the officials collect the fingerprints from around 500 new passport applicants every day.
