The Immigration and Passport Department is yet to complete all preparations needed to incorporate the payment process of passport fees into e-challan system. It was scheduled to be launched by November 1.
The introduction of passport fee payment through e-challan systed is expected to reduce hassle for citizens and cut the influence of middlemen. Moreover, the received payments will be deposited in the government treasury through state-run commercial Banks on time.
According to the directive of Senior Secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder, fee payment for passports was expected to be included in e-challan programme on the first day of November, an official of the finance division said.
However, officials of the passport authority informed the concerned that they were not able to complete all the preparation process and were ready yet for the move.
Major General Mohammad Ayub Chowdhury, Director General (DG) of the Department of Immigration and Passports said the preparations for the move could not be completed on time due to the pandemic.
“We will inform the Finance Ministry once all the preparations done for the move,” he said.
E-invoice and e-challan have been introduced from the Access to Information (A2I) program of the Prime Minister's Office under the direction and supervision of the Finance Division. There is an online banking facility, anyone can submit revenue online through e-invoice.
Through the program, invoices are used for collecting and transacting fees for various government services. The manual method is to collect the customer's invoice form from the bank or photocopy shop.
A citizen spends extra time and money to complete the consignment work manually and has to travel. In the same way, the daily accounts of the officers and employees of the concerned banks or institutions are reconciled, payments are made in favour of the designated institution and additional expenses and stress are created to complete the office work.
Meanwhile, the e-challan is being introduced to all commercial banks. A total of 200 branches of state-run banks have already introduced e-challan from the beginning of this year.
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