鈥楪ovt considers shelving police verification for passports鈥�
Home adviser lieutenant general (retired) Md Jahangir Alam Chowdhury on Thursday inaugurated the online app for visa on arrival or Transit Visa application for foreign nationals to simplify the issuance of visas.
鈥榃e have launched the App so that foreign nationals can get visas on arrival easily,鈥� he said.
He also said that they were thinking about issuing passports to Bangladeshi nationals without police verification.
Speaking to journalists after inaugurating the app at the home ministry conference room at secretariat, Jahangir said that foreigners from then on got the visa within five to 10 minutes which earlier required 40 minutes to one hour.
鈥楾o get the facility, the foreign citizen will have to file an application giving their necessary information using the online app,鈥� he said, adding that after completion of the process, they would get a code.
鈥楾hey will get an on-arrival visa to Bangladesh after showing the code and paying the money [visa processing fee] in dollars. The foreigners will get an arrival visa for 30 days and they can pay the money both in cash and card.鈥�
Immigration authorities at international airports and land ports may issue entry visas to persons holding passports of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russian Federation, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Brunei and European countries arriving in Bangladesh for official purposes, business, investment and tourism only, after verifying the necessary documents and being completely satisfied.
If a person arrives in Bangladesh from a country other than his own country, where there is no Bangladesh embassy, he may be issued an entry visa after verifying his suitability for travel.
In the case of foreign citizens of Bangladeshi origin, their spouses and children, an entry visa may be issued based on the Bangladeshi citizenship certificate/certificate of the Bangladeshi origin concerned.
鈥榃e will try to shelve police verification for issuance of passports,鈥� the home adviser said after inaugurating the process of lodging complaints through the national emergency service 鈥�999鈥� by the passport applicants to simplify the passport verification.
Jahangir Alam said that they were thinking whether the police verification system could be withdrawn to simplify the process of issuing passports against Bangladeshi nationals.
Asked about when the system would start functioning, he said that a little time would be required for the process.
