Taking serious notice of the delay in issuance of passports, the Senate Standing Committee on Interior on Wednesday called for immediate measures to ensure quick delivery of passports to applicants.
Despite paying a hefty fee of Rs 5,000 for urgent passport delivery, people are unable to get their passports in time, while those who pay the ordinary fee of Rs 3,000 have to wait for months, said chairman of the committee Talha Mahmood while chairing a meeting.
The meeting was attended by Senators Mukhtar Ahmed Dhamrah, Sardar Ali Khan and Fateh Muhammad Hassani, and senior officials of the Interior Ministry, Directorate General of Immigration and Passports, and the National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA).
He described the affairs at the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports (DGIP) as “chaotic”, causing suffering to the people.
While giving a briefing, Passports and Immigration Director General (DG) Wajid Ali Bukhari said the authority had delayed issuing passports because the Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC) in Karachi had reduced the daily supply of passport booklets from 15,000 to 5,000 in September 2012 due to non-payment of outstanding dues.
He said that after detailed deliberations, the PSPC had agreed to provide 15,000 passport booklets per day from October 1 to 13, 2012, and 10,000 booklets per day during the month of November, subject to clearance of dues.
He further said that efforts were being made to clear all outstanding dues of the PSPC, while the matter had been taken up with the finance division.
He further informed that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had also directed the finance division to pay off outstanding liabilities of the PSPC on an urgent basis.
He said the matter was under active consideration and upon receiving approval from the finance division, the outstanding liability of the PSPC would be cleared, and normal supply of passport booklets would be restored.
The DG said that in order to curb corruption, the provincial authorities had been asked to remove the touts or private agents sitting outside the premises of regional passport offices.
The zonal heads had also been directed to effectively monitor the working of regional offices falling under their jurisdiction and conduct surprise checks regularly to improve functioning of offices, he stated.
The committee was also informed that the passport office had been contributing Rs 14 billion annually to the national exchequer, but the government was not releasing Rs 597 million to clear outstanding dues for printing of passports.
The committee was also informed about a backlog of 0.2 million passports and the reason behind the mess was the same shortage of booklets and delay in release of funds.
“It is astonishing that a department earning Rs 14 billion was facing delay in release of funds,” Senator Mahmood and other members of the committee remarked. The DG told the meeting that currently 72 passport offices were functioning in the country while ten more offices would be inaugurated soon to facilitate the local population.
The committee expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of NACTA and sought a detailed report within a week about staff and funds utilisation during the past four years.