No room for tampering Machine Readable Passport: director

Terming Machine Readable Passport (MRP) as state of the art travelling document, the Director Passport (Sindh) Ejaz Ahmed Khan said here on Thursday that there is no room for tampering the new passport. All aspects for the convenience of the applicant, who wants to obtain MRP, have been ensured, the Director Passport told Radio Pakistan's programme "Bilmushafa" here on Thursday.
He said that the procedure to apply for MRP is so easy that there is no need for a male person to bring with him anybody for his help. There is also a friendly atmosphere, he added. However, a female applicant can bring any member of her family for assistance.
Ejaz Ahmed said that the procedure is very simple as compared to the old cumbersome process for obtaining passport. An applicant, he said is required to bring along his Computerised National Identity card. For ordinary passport, the applicant is required to pay Rs 21O0 and will get passport within twelve days, while for urgent passport he will have to pay Rs 4000 for obtaining MRP in 5 days.
He said that all applications for obtaining passports are processed with the help of computers.
To a question, Ejaz Khan said that the bonafied applicant can not face any problems in obtaining MRP.
In the present situation the services of any "agent" are no more required, he said.
The Director Passport said that an average 900-1000 applicants visit Awami Markaz daily where the MRP office is located. He advised the general public that to safe time and for early completion of the process, they should come to the passport office as early as possible.
He said that separate booths for senior citizens and special persons have been established.
He further said the staff of his office is working beyond their duty hours to process the applications in time.
To a question Ejaz Khan said that at present there are five stations from where MRPs are issued. They are Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta and federal capital Islamabad.
Regarding future plan of expansion, Ejaz said that the number of stations would be increased to 28 in the country while ten stations will be functional in different foreign countries.
He said that the old building is being renovated for accommodation of an additional passport office.