ID cards for 10 cr people in next 5 yrs

"It's a five-year project and we've already got approval of the fund from the Finance Ministry," he said responding to BNP member Col (Retd) Anwarul Azim, who wanted to know whether identity card would be issued in the wake of terrorism in the country.

Babar said National Identity Cards will be issued simultaneously with new Machine-Readable Passports (MRPs) replacing the present handwritten ones.

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Replying to Dr Syed Makbul Hossain (BNP), he said the MRP will be issued by next August. With the introduction of computerised MRP, various problems facing the Bangladeshi passport holders at foreign immigrations would be overcome.

Replying to a supplementary of Joynul Abedin Faruq (BNP), he said the government now discourages issuance of urgent passports at Tk 5,000 pending police verifications as it causes various problems. Only patients who go abroad for treatment are issued urgent passports, he added.

Asked about the government steps for easing the Indian visa regime, he said the process of getting Indian visa is quite easy, and the Foreign Ministry is working on it for further simplification.