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Published on June 18, 2014
The home ministry may place a proposal at the meeting of the cabinet committee on public purchase today, seeking approval for Kuala Lumpur-based IRIS Corporation Berhad Consortium to collect data from Bangladeshis for MRPs.
Handwritten passports have to be replaced by MRPs by November 2015, as per the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. About 15 lakh Bangladeshis work in Saudi Arabia, and if the MRPs cannot be provided to them by the deadline, they will have to return to Bangladesh.
The home ministry said it would not be possible to provide MRPs to the huge number of Bangladeshis through the Bangladesh embassy in Saudi Arabia within the deadline.
Expatriates live in different regions of Saudi Arabia and it would be difficult for them to come to the Bangladesh embassy in Riyadh to collect MRPs.
So the home ministry made the proposal to provide them with MRPs at a charge of $9 with the help of the outsourcing company in addition to the normal fees.
IRIS Corporation will collect the necessary data from Bangladeshis in Saudi Arabia through regional centres and send those to the passport office in Dhaka online, according to the proposal.
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