Passport applicants’ plights on

There seems to be no end in sight for the country’s passport applicants’ plights although Bangladesh, as the first country in South Asia to issue e-passport for all of its eligible citizens, has taken an ambitious move in the right direction for several years now.

This pesky issue of public sufferings has come to the fore once again with the country’s passport taking one-step back in the latest Henley Passport Index (HPI), which is the most widely-accepted annual global ranking of countries according to the travel freedom of their citizens.

The latest HPI ranking shows that Bangladesh has stepped back one notch to 97th position in its 2024 edition of the most and least powerful passports of the world, which is down one place from the last quarter of 2023.

As is the case, the strength of a passport is determined by how many countries the passport can garner access without a visa. For any traveller, this essentially means for how many countries he/she can buy a ticket, carry a valid passport and just show up at the immigration counter in airports (or water and land borders).

However, the latest edition of the HPI — published last month — features a total of 104 spots with some countries’ passports sharing the same ranking.
In the index, Bangladesh shared its position with North Korea, which is a country virtually isolated from the rest of the world.

As the ranking is based on the number of destinations passport holders can access without a prior visa, a Bangladeshi passport as per the HPI 2024 entitles visa-free travel to 42 destinations.

In South Asia, Maldives’ passport ranked at 58, becoming the strongest in South Asia with visa-free access to 94 countries. India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka’s passports ranked at 80th, 87th and 96th respectively, while the Bangladeshi passport fared better compared to only that of Nepal (98), Pakistan (101) and Afghanistan (104).
The countries sharing the bottom 5 rankings as per the passport index are: Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.

The baffling fact that draws attention is Bangladesh’s passport has continuously found itself lingering in the bottom half of the list. In 2006, Bangladeshi passport’s ranking was 68th in the world, and since then it has continued to weaken, with the highest rise being marked by eight places between 2012 (93rd) and 2013 (85th). However, Bangladesh’s passport holders can still travel to 42 foreign destinations without prior visas, although the number was 41 in 2023.

ALLEGATIONS APLENTY AMID PASSPORT APPLICANTS’ PUZZLE

Allegations remain rife pointing to the apparent cases of systematic delay in sending police verification report and issuing passports, which result in applicants’ continued sufferings despite years of government efforts to smoothen and quicken the process.

As the passport issuing authority, the DIP has introduced in recent years three separate schemes to issue e-passports based on the degree of applicants’ necessity, service time and charge.

The fastest passport delivery scheme is titled Super Express Delivery that requires Tk 10,350/= for a 48-page and 10-year-validity passport to be issued within 2 working days, then comes Express Delivery scheme requiring Tk 8,050 to issue passports in 7 working days and finally comes the Regular Delivery scheme requiring Tk 5,750 to issue the book within 15 working days/ 21 days from the biometric enrolment date. The fees are even higher for a 64-page e-passport with same validity period.

As for a practical case of sufferings, this journalist submitted his e-passport application on 19/12/2021 depositing Tk 10,350 for a 48-page and 10-year-validity passport with a delivery slip received after biometric enrolment noting 21/12/2021 as the tentative collection date. But quite surprisingly, the passport was not delivered even in 12 months although several attempts were made to obtain the passport with a view to making an urgent tour abroad.

Repeated attempts were made talking to different layers of the DIP authority for immediate issuance of the passport – only with no result until the next December!
However, this has not been any isolated case of sufferings to refer to as applicants in far greater number still continue to suffer in case of getting the passport service in time.

Another suffering father shared his sufferings, “Recently, I walked out of, or rather escaped, a passport office in Chattogram after failing to complete the biometric enrolment for myself and my two sons. At that time, I was filled with rage, frustration and shame just thinking about what the citizens of Bangladesh have to suffer to avail such a basic but crucial service. Really, why do we have to run a gauntlet for something so necessary as a passport?”

Meanwhile, it has been known that due to slow server speed it takes a lot of time to fill the application form. After that, the passport was supposed to be delivered within 15 to 21 days, but the appointment date was given after a month. In this situation, education, travel, treatment, workplace and important work are getting stuck due to passport complications. 

Regarding the complaints, an official of the e-passport project said the passport aspirants, including expatriate workers at the passport office, were overwhelmed since the rate of coronavirus infection decreased. Such a complication has arisen, he observed, due to a large number of applications at once.

Besides, according to him, this server of passport works on the basis of communication with several servers of national identity card, birth registration certificate, payment. He, however, said that the effect of weakness in all those servers also creates complications in the processing of e-passport.

There are also complaints that many customers are using the same email ID, where no response is received when any email is sent. It has been seen that many fill the passport form from various computer shops in the neighborhood.

Mistakes generally occurs there. And the e-mail id of that shop is given in the application. The passport office insiders, however, claim that if there is not enough manpower, this suffering will not reduce soon.

Whether it’s for business, education, or entertainment, Bangladeshis these days visit different countries more often. But it’s really disheartening that whenever they go out to visit the foreign destinations of their choice and necessity, they’re faced with undue hurdles and harassments pretty often due mainly to the passport’s inferior ranking as a least powerful one. It’s time now the government takes concerted efforts to further the acceptance of Bangladeshi passport in greater scales and areas.

This will not only safeguard the rights, privilege and pride of all Bangladeshi citizens traveling abroad, but will also help boost our culture, economy, society and country image abroad. This can come through greater diplomatic efforts, and carefully forging closer ties with other countries. Bangladesh already has plenty of development partners; hence it is entirely sensible for the next step in our partnership to help have visa-free access for Bangladeshis to those countries.

For its part, Bangladesh already announced the launch of online passport system several years ago. From the comfort of their homes, one can avail the services of passport offices. Despite manpower shortage and lack of infrastructural capacity, the process, launched amid much fanfare as another shining jewel on the crown of Bangladesh’s promising path to digitalisation, was meant to greatly quicken the process of obtaining passports locally while garnering greater acceptance globally.

It has been known that every day nearly 3 thousand people go with applications to the Agargaon passport office in Dhaka with over one thousand other relatives accompanying them.

Visitors are of the view that the passport office does not have the physical infrastructure and manpower to serve such a large number of beneficiaries. According to an information, it has the capacity to manage 2,560 applications daily. As a result, there is a delay in getting the passport in many cases. Despite these problems, authorities say, 2,000 to 2,500 passports are being provided to people every working day. A passport office official said, “there is not enough space to accommodate so many people and to provide services in a timely manner few more offices are needed in Dhaka alone”.

The HPI, the only one of its kind based on unique data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA), has historical data going back 19 years. The database lists 227 travel destinations and 199 passports.

The HPI is updated every quarter, and is regarded as the go-to resource for global citizens and sovereign states for determining where a passport ranks on the scale of global mobility.

HPI was introduced 19 years back by British firm Henley and Partners. This annual index takes data from the International Air Travel Association (IATA) and covers passports of 199 countries in 111 spots and 227 travel destinations. Since 2006, HPI has been compiling and issuing the list, which ranks and lists passports representing countries from all seven continents across the globe taking into consideration the number of destinations the citizens of these countries can visit without obtaining a prior visa.