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25,000 passports would be printed every day, with various categories for how urgently citizens need them

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan’s announcement that the government will start the distribution of e-passports is wholly welcome news.

It is yet another step for Bangladesh towards its eventual digitization and modernization, fully realizing the dream of a truly Digital Bangladesh as the incumbent government envisioned more than a decade ago.

On top of ensuring Bangladesh’s place in the future, the advent of e-passports will ensure that immigration procedures and the stress related to it become a thing of the past, with a person’s information being available to authorities within seconds through the use of this technology.

Unfortunately, in the past, when it comes to efficiency, Bangladesh has not had the best track record, with corruption and ineptitude reigning supreme in many of our public offices.

However, this is a good first step towards ensuring that such incompetencies become a thing of the past, with the government promising that 25,000 such passports would be printed every day, with various categories for how urgently citizens need them.

This will also take immigration formalities online, a step that other departments of the government can take a cue from, as it ensures that information and applications are more easily available and submitting them is a much smoother process.

A passport is a citizen’s window into the world, and we hope that, moving forward, the government does an effective job of ensuring that each and every citizen of this country has access to this window.

This remains crucial for a country emerging on the global stage, and for better connectivity and trade.