Indians in Kuwait advised to phase out hand-written passports

Indians in Kuwait have been advised to urgently apply for re-issuance of new passports to phase out all non-Machine Readable Passports.

The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has set November 24, 2015 as deadline for globally phasing out of all non-Machine Readable Passports (MRPs).

From November 25 next year, foreign governments may deny visa or entry to any person travelling on a non-Machine Readable Passport.

"The Government of India has been issuing Machine Readable Passports since 2001. The passports, however, issued before 2001 and particularly those issued during mid 1990s with a validity of 20 years will fall in the category of non-MRPs," the embassy said in a statement.

"All handwritten passports with pasted photographs are also considered non-MRPs," the statement said.

Indians living in Kuwait holding handwritten passports, with validity beyond November 25, 2015, have been advised to get their passports reissued well before the deadline to avoid any inconvenience in obtaining valid visa for international travel.

"Many international travellers may not realise that having a passport with short validity remaining is sometimes not good enough to obtain visas or to enter certain foreign countries, it said.

"Indian citizens travelling on passports which may expire in less than six months, should renew their passports before any upcoming international travel," the statement said.

It is especially important to check the passports needs of any minor who may be accompanying their parents as passports for minors have a shorter validity period (five years) than passports for adults (10 years). Moreover, some countries do not accept passports which may have fewer than two pages remaining.