Director General Passport and Immigration Department of Pakistan, Wajid Bukhari has said that they are facing severe financial crisis and have a backlog of more than 0.2 million passport applications in the department.
The matter surfaced during the meeting of Senate Standing Committee on Interior held in the federal capital. The DG threatened to close the operation after November 30 if their request was not met.
He said that they are unable to develop passports due to the non-issuance of budget by the Defence Ministry. He further said that they are receiving 10,000 to 15,000 applications everyday.
He said the department is facing the crisis despite generating revenue of 14 billion rupees for the national exchequer. He claimed that they can clear the backlog in one month if their request is met.
The committee decided on the occasion to raise the matter with the concerned ministry.
Which government department isn't facing financial crisis under the present corrupt rulers?
The Awami Markaz passport office Karachi 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, no serious action was taken. but i heard that agents are not allowed to enter in the premises of Passport office although they can do their business 100 yards away from the Passport office
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 8,000 are taken per passport for providing a speedy service. The mod us operand 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 Awami Markaz 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. . The Concerned 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 Karachi admired Government 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 Government 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 Government 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 destruction. my humble request to the authorities to take immediate action against deliberately delaying for issuance of Passports,
Regards
Rabia Khalil
thats great problem,i have to apply for psssport for study purposes,idf i ga late then i would be illegible for getting admission in my required course
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