Serbia’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic stated that the relevant Ministry has so far issued around 3.6 million new biometric passports, recalling that the old passports will be valid until the year’s end.
Speaking at a presentation “Technical achievements of the Serbian Ministry of the Interior in 2011”, at which new technical achievements used by the police on a daily bases were presented, Dacic said that during a ten year period before the introduction of biometric passports, only 1.4 million travel documents had been issued.
The number of issued passports is indeed an epoch making result, given all the difficulties that arose in the process, such as staff and room shortage, he observed.
A special achievement is the fact that no one in the world has managed to forge a Serbian passport so far, which indicates the high level of protection of these documents, the Minister stressed.
He recalled that since June, personal ID cards will no longer be valid for five, but for ten years, while children’s passports will be valid for five instead of two years.
As for other documents in the form of cards, we have issued 1.6 million of these, of which 1.3 million are vehicle registration cards and 300,000 driving licences.
The Minister acquainted the press with various technical achievements helping to improve the work of the police, including a border control system, a licence plate recognition system and an electronic gate at Nikola Tesla Airport.
It is also worth mentioning video surveillance of the Ground Safety Zone, a secure telephone line and Tetra communication system, city video surveillance and electronic services.
As for the latter, he said that the most popular service is the one used to book a term for submitting documents for new ID cards and passports.
This service is currently available in four police stations in Belgrade and Novi Sad, but it will soon be available in almost the entire territory of Serbia, he added.
Source balkans.com
