Dhaka: The slow pace in issuing machine-readable passports (MRPs) has built tension among 36lakh Bangladeshi migrants in 13 countries as they will be considered illegal workers if the government fails to provide them with MRPs by 24 November, reports UNB.

The old passport holders will not be allowed to travel to any country after the deadline set by International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) making MRPs mandatory for all nationalities across the world.

Sources at the Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Ministry here said there are 91 lakh Bangladeshi migrants in 160 countries. Most of the old (non-MRP) passport holders (nearly 57.5 lakh) have been living in 13 countries. Among them, 20.7 lakh people were provided with MRPs, but nearly 36 lakh are yet to get the ones.

The 13 countries are Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Italy, Korea, Mauritius, Japan, Egypt, Brunei and Jordan.

‘It’s a very important issue to us. I have held meetings with several ministers and high officials aiming to accelerate the issuance of MRPs to the Bangladeshi migrants,’ Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain told UNB.

Asked whether it would be possible to provide all the expatriates with MRPs within the deadline, the minister said, ‘We hope we’ll be able to deliver MRPs to 90-95 percent expatriates by the given time.’

The government employed Malaysian outsourcing company ‘IRIS’ to complete the procedure for providing MRPs to the Bangladeshis living in Saudi Arabia and the UAE . But the company has failed to do the work properly due to some infrastructural problems, the minister said.

IRIS is supposed to provide the authorities concerned the expatriates’ birth registration, photo and other data through online, the ministry sources said. 

But the work is getting delayed as IRIS failed to accomplish the birth registration work speedily due to some technical problems like slow server, the sources added.

An advisory committee meeting was held at the Ministry on 11 March with Expatriate Welfare Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain in the chair which decided that Bangladeshi server will be kept open from 8am to 2pm every day except Fridays and Saturdays for expediting the birth registration work for issuing  MRPs in the 13 countries, the sources said.

The Saudi government has already informed the Bangladeshi authorities that they will not extend the time after the November-24 deadline is over, according to the sources.

A meeting in this regard will be held in the ministry with the representatives of IRIS on 19 March to discuss the problems as they are likely to arrive here on 18 March.

Passport and Immigration Department director general of NM Ziaul Alam told the news agency that most non-MRP passport holders are living in Saudi, the UAE and Malaysia. IRIS is working in Saudi Arabia and the UAE while another company, Data Age, is working in Malaysia.

‘It won’t be difficult to provide MRPs to the Bangladeshis in the UAE and Malaysia within the deadline but it will be tough to provide those to the migrants of Saudi Arabia,’ said Ziaul.

Home Ministry senior secretary Mozammel Haque said: ‘We’re trying to provide MRPs to all the expatriates by 24 November. If we fail to do so we’ll try to get extra time.’      

Mozammel Haque said more workforce and logistic support will be sent to the countries where the number of non-MRP holders is high to complete the work within the deadline.