Dubai: The Consulate General of India has urged Indian expats holding manual passports to get them changed to machine-readable passports (MRPs) as the international deadline for making the change expires in a year’s time.
“This is not India-specific. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has set a deadline for removing non-MRPs from circulation by November 24, 2015 and this applies to all ICAO member states,” Consul General Anurag Bhushan told XPRESS.
Ease of journey
He said, “Although it is not clear at this stage what the ICAO’s official position is on the possible consequences of not meeting the deadline, we would like to stress travelling on ICAO-compliant machine readable passports will facilitate a passenger’s journey and make it more secure.”
He said the CGI, which covers Dubai and the northern emirates, started issuing MRPs since 2006. “We issue on an average 900 passports a day as of now. Calculating the numbers from these statistics, one can see that the majority of Indians may not have handwritten passports in circulation.”
He said: “Indian expats who have MRPs already may also spread the word to create awareness among fellow Indians.”
A notification from the Ministry of External Affairs alerted citizens, whether in India or abroad, to get MRPs in time. Those holding handwritten passports or 20-year passports valid beyond November 24, 2015 must apply for new passports and obtain MRPs well before the deadline to avoid inconvenience in obtaining foreign visas or issues with immigration.
According to the ICAO, a non-MRP includes not just handwritten passports but also those that have no Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) or includes another family member’s name in addition to that of the passport holder.
“Some other cases can be more difficult to spot such as errors in MRZ and the bio-data page which require a closer look by an expert assessor.”
The November 2015 deadline applies to all types of passports: ordinary, diplomatic and service. It does not apply to temporary travel documents or passports of limited validity in cases of emergency, and are issued to distressed nationals so they can return to their home country.
