SEPANG : About one million holders of machine-readable Malaysian passports equipped with smart chips will now be able to zip through the Immigration counter at the KL International Airport here within 15 seconds.

The automatic gate (autogate) would open after scanning that the information provided is correct, ensuring that the passport holder is not blacklisted.

 All that the passport holder has to do is place the document on a smart reader to enable the Immigration officer to verify the information and thumbprints.

The passport would not even be stamped.

The autogate, which has been on trial for the past three weeks, is aimed at cutting down the queues at Immigration counters.

Immigration director-general Datuk Aseh Che Mat said passport holders with the smart chips should not have any problems over the lack of stamp marks when they travel to other countries.

"The Immigration Department has informed all foreign Immigration authorities that from Aug 1, Malaysia will computerise exit and entry through electronic processing.

"We will install autogates at the causeway, the Second Link, Penang, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu in stages before the end of this year,'' he said at the launch of the autogate at KLIA.

The Immigration Department would also enclose in passports a letter signed by Aseh informing Immigration authorities in other countries of the new electronic smart passport verification system.

Initially, only two machines would be installed at the KLIA, one for departure and one for arrival. More would be added, depending on the response.

Aseah said the old passports without the smart chip would be phased out by 2004.

He said under the new system, there would no longer be the problem of passports running out of pages.

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Zainal Abidin Zin, who launched the autogate, said the police and the Anti-Corruption Agency were investigating cases involving falsification of bulk approvals for foreign workers.

"The ministry is also probing how thousands of approvals for foreign workers were given,'' he said.

In the past, several thousand approvals for foreign workers were given in large volumes.

He said the Immigration Department had also set up a committee to investigate employers who claimed that they needed about 10,000 workers, but really had no requirement for such a large number of workers.

The ministry, he said, would blacklist such employers.