File photo of the inside cover of a Bangladesh passport.
DOHA: Several Asian embassies in Qatar have claimed that they have almost completed phasing out the handwritten passports held by their community members, in line with international requirements.
The deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) for member countries for replacing all handwritten passports with machine readable ones ended on November 24 last year.
Sources from several Asian embassies said yesterday that some of their community members still hold handwritten passports but their number is not big.
Although the ICAO has not clearly explained the consequences of not having a machine readable passport, people failing to obtain such passports could have difficulty obtaining visas. “Bangladesh has been issuing machine readable passport for many years. We have almost phased out the handwritten passports, a few might have been left”, a senior official of the Bangladesh embassy told The Peninsula.
“Bangladeshi expatriates holding handwritten passport can approach the embassy in person or apply online to obtain the machine readable passports. We process 150 passports on a daily basis. It takes a maximum of two to three weeks because we get the new passports printed from Bangladesh. In case of emergency, the candidates can go to Bangladesh where they can get the new passports within three days,” he added.
‘Only few hand-written passports remaining’
Nepalese embassy started issuing machine readable passports from 2014 and launched a massive campaign in collaboration with community organisations in the beginning of 2015 to do away with the handwritten passports, said a community source.
“We cannot say exactly how many Nepalese expatriates still hold handwritten passports but I assure you that there will be very few,” said an official from Nepal embassy.
“The embassy has reduced the charges for issuance of new passport from some QR300 to QR180 recently. There is no rush at passport section. We receive very few applications for passport renewals these days. Our capacity is 400 passports per day. Since we do not have passport printing machine in Qatar the process will take about 30 days,” he added.
An official of the Pakistan embassy also said that there are only few handwritten passports still existing, especially those having 10 year validity. “We have been issuing machine readable passports for the past five years. Our problem is that those who got machine readable passport five years ago are now applying for renewal, causing huge rush in the embassy,” said the official.
“We have increased our capacity to cope with the rush”, he added.
The Indian embassy recently issued a reminder to community members to urgently replace their handwritten passports, with machine-readable ones.
The government of India has been issuing machine readable Passports since 2001. By the end of July this year, it was estimated that there were approximately 210,000 handwritten passports were in circulation, said an embassy statement issued last month.
The ICAO has exempted temporary travel documents or passports of limited validity in cases of emergency, which usually have a short validity period and are issued by consulates to distressed nationals so that they could return to their home country, according a statement posted on its website.
It means non-machine readable passport holders especially those hailed from the countries that are not printing passport in Qatar will have two options in case of urgency; either wait two to four weeks for new passports or go to their countries on a travel document to get the machine readable passport. Embassies of some Asian countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan are still getting the new passports printed from their home countries.
