Friday 3 January 2014

Several Asian and other countries have advised their nationals around the world to replace their handwritten passports with Machine Readable Passports (MRP) by Nov. 24, 2015. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has set this global deadline for all countries to have MRPs. Failure to comply could see foreign governments deny visas or entry to persons traveling with handwritten passports, according to a press release issued recently by the Consulate General of India.

The Kingdom stopped endorsing employment visas for handwritten passports in November 2011, the first country in the Gulf Cooperation Council to do so. Passports with photos pasted in manually are considered handwritten documents, the consulate stated. All 20-year validity passports also fall into this category. The Indian government started issuing MRPs in 2001. The consulate urged Indian citizens at home and abroad to apply for the new passports well before the deadline to avoid any problems in obtaining foreign visas. The diplomatic missions of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Yemen and the Philippines have already started issuing the new passports for their nationals across the world.

The Indian consulate in Jeddah started issuing the MRPs in 2005. More than 90 percent of Indian expatriates now have MRPs. Pranav Ganesh, Indian consul for consular and passport services, told Arab News "very few Indian nationals hold handwritten passports. On a rough estimate, the figure is about 20,000." He said, "We have replaced the huge number of handwritten passports with MRPs in the past two drives. The third drive was launched on the eve of 2014. "We will have phased out the handwritten passports including those with validity beyond 2015 by the year end." Some diplomatic missions in the Kingdom, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Philippines, have biometric recording stations.

However, India continues to issue passports without recording applicants' biometrics. The Pakistan and Bangladesh diplomatic missions have started to issue MRPs after recording the applicants' biometrics. These are transmitted to their countries where they are printed and then dispatched to the Kingdom, which sources say could result in delays.

© Arab News 2014