Flora Telecom to support deployment of e-passport

DHAKA, July 21 (NsNewsWire) — Bangladeshi technology firm Flora Telecom will provide technical solutions for implementation of electronic passport project across the country. The government on Wednesday awarded German firm Veridos GmbH for providing e-passports to Bangladesh. Flora will maintain the data centre, disaster recovery sites and regional passport offices utilizing its skilled human resources, according to a news release of the firm. Besides, as a local technology partner, Flora will supply enterprise servers, storage as well as security solutions for the project implementation. Veridos has won the job to provide Bangladesh with biometric e-passports for around Tk 33.4 billion. The German firm will provide passport booklets, 28 million machines to make e-passports, relevant accessories, software, and 10 years of maintenance services. Officials say the government felt the need for e-passports after noticing a trend of people having more than one copy of passport as there was no database of biometric information like fingerprints or iris images of the MRP holders. The officials said the biometric information of the citizens will be put in the e-passports using a chip to ensure that no one can hide identity. Flora Telecom Managing Director Mustafa Rafiqul Islam Duke said they are very confident combining Identification and secured the e-passport project experience of the German firm Veridos along with Flora’s strength in enterprise-based systems integration. He also hoped that the expertise of Flora will make the passport project successful at the Department of Passport and Immigration in Bangladesh. The Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase cleared the proposal to buy the e-passports from Veridos at a meeting chaired by Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Wednesday. The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council or ECNEC approved the project with total estimated cost of Tk 46.36 billion on June 21.

[Photo caption: From right side is Hans Wolfgang Kunz, CEO of Veridos, Mustafa Rafiqul Islam Duke, Managing Director of Flora Telecom and CEO of GnD the parent company of Veridos. Flora Telecom is the local IT partner of Veridos for this e-passport project. Press Release