Faisalabad passport office a hub of bribery

The Faisalabad passport office is the only place where agents openly negotiate the amount of bribes to get the passport issued, without any fear of prosecution for the police and the passport issuing authorities have made an unholy alliance with these agents. This formation of a triangle has transformed the life of poor applicants into a living hell. These defenseless applicants have been totally left at the mercy of this triangle comprising agent mafia, passport office employees and the area police. No applicant can go to a passport counter without procuring the services of an agent. The official at the counter return their passport forms by raising unjustified objections to the documents.
Clashing with an agent is tantamount to inviting the anger and fury of the passport office employees. It is ironical that some of the senior level officials have turned into the godfathers of this ‘lucrative business’. After frequent complaints of bribery and stories of clashes between agents and visitors, DCO Nasim Sadiq, acting under Section 144 of Criminal Procedure Code, has banned the entry of agents within 100 yards of the passport office premises. Those found erecting benches outside the office within 100 yards will be arrested for violating Section 144. The gravity of the situation and the measure taken by the city government are quite disproportionate under the circumstances.
It is all a stranger than fiction, but a real life story. It impliedly means that bribery is banned within 100 yards, but beyond that you are allowed to operate. It is like administering a tablet of disprin to a cancer patient who needs a major surgery. There are reports that up to Rs 5,000 are taken per passport for providing a speedy service. The modus operandi of the agents is that once they take the money and start processing an application, they ask for more money under different pretexts and continue to extort money from the applicants. An applicant working abroad who wanted renewal of his passport wasted more than three months to get a new passport.
At one point, he walked out of the agents and bumped into the office of a senior officer to describe his ordeal. But he was in tears when the officer demanded money for his passport. The officer told him that as Faisalabad office was paying Rs 10 million per month to the high-ups of the ministry, they have no option but to collect the money from the public. He further told the distraught applicant that by paying a small amount of Rs 5,000 to 10,000, he was not going to lose much because this was a way to go abroad and earn millions of rupees. In another incident, a passport victim accompanied by his family was assaulted by a group of agents who snatched all his payment receipts and original documents when he refused to pay more money.
He reported the matter to the Civil Lines police who nominated around one dozen agents, but the proceedings failed under a shady compromise between the parties. The Civil Lines police have a record of all the agents, operating outside the passport office, and if they want to stop this illegal trade, they can do it without much effort. The residents of Faisalabad admired DCO Nasim Sadiq for his road expansion and beautification drive that has contributed to the free flow of traffic in the city. But the real change in the lives of people will come when the society is made corruption-free. The community expects from the DCO that as the second phase of his drive, he will focus on the eradication of bribery rampant in the government departments.
A number of social workers and local think tank members say that they have well documented evidence of bribery transactions in the district management machinery. But bribery needs no proof as beauty needs no ornaments. It is quite simple for the DCO or any bureaucrat to verify it by just sending a man with a passport application form. Behold, nations do not perish in wars alone; denying hard realities is the cause of social destructions.