Airports to accept only machine-readable passports from international travellers

Handwritten passports are to become obsolete from Wednesday (Nov 25), according to the deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 24 Nov 2015, 07:03 AM
Updated : 24 Nov 2015, 07:09 AM

After Tuesday, only machine-readable passports (MRPs) will be accepted at airports. This means, no one will be allowed to travel from one country to another with handwritten passports, unless the UN specialised agency, which develops and suggests global airline safety standards and practices, extends the deadline.

In compliance with the ICAO deadline, the Department of Immigration and Passports (DIP) took up the MRP distribution project on Apr 1, 2010.

As of Monday, the MRPs have reached about 12.25 million Bangladeshis, according to the home ministry.

The civil aviation and tourism ministry through an advertisement on Jul 29 reminded the people of the ICAO deadline on the MRPs.

Khandker Mosharraf Hossain, the then expatriates’ welfare minister, had hoped in March that 9.1 million Bangladeshi expatriates would have the new passports in their hands by November so that they wouldn’t face any hassles living abroad.

However, more than 1.1 million expatriates were yet to receive the MRPs, Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told Parliament on Thursday.

But different media reports citing the DIP suggest that the number of expatriates yet to receive the new passports would not exceed 200,000.