The Department of Immigration and Passports will initially distribute e-passports form its Agargaon, Uttara and Jatrabari offices in Dhaka.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to launch e-passport distribution at an event scheduled to be held at the capital’s Bangabandhu International Conference Centre on Wednesday, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan said at a media briefing on Sunday.
The president and the prime minister of Bangladesh will receive e-passports first, he said, adding that anyone can apply for e-passports.
The delivery of e-passports will start in regional offices by the end of 2020. The services will expand in phases, the minister said. Machine-readable passports will remain valid as well.
DIP will issue 48-page and 64-page e-passports with the validity of five years and ten years respectively.
The decision on introducing digital passport comes less than a decade after Bangladesh switched from manual passport to the machine-readable passport or MRP.