DHAKA: The Postal Department is going to sign a deal with the Passport Department this week for issuing machine-readable passports (MRP) through post offices from August 1.

“In the first phase, three post offices in Dhaka will introduce the service which will later be implemented at 81 post offices across the country”, Postal Department Director General Mobasherur Rahman told banglanews24.com.bd.

He also informed that the Postal department will initially start providing the machine-readable passports from Sadarghat, Gulshan and Uttara post offices once a Memorandum the deal is inked on July 15.

“Passport Department did not want to allow us for this task. But the Home Ministry permitted us to offer the services through three post offices in Dhaka on an experimental basis,” Rahman said.

A Tk 300 charge has been proposed for a machine-readable passport from the post office. Earlier, passport seekers had to pay Tk 200 to get a general category passport from post offices.

BDST: 1110 HRS, JULY 12,2010