The Machine Readable Passports (MRP) will replace the manual passports by 2010 in conformity with International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and thus the manual passport will not be entertained by any country for grant of visa after 2010. ICAO is a specialised agency of the United Nations, organised in 1947, with headquarters at Montreal.
The objective of the ICAO, which has 187 member nations, is to encourage the orderly growth of international civil aviation. In order to meet the deadline given by ICAO regarding discontinuation of manual passports, the department has planned to convert all Pakistani missions abroad into MRP system, the sources said adding that only the foreign missions are issuing manual passports.
Currently, there are 12 Pakistani missions abroad where MRP facility is available, while MRP system will be deployed in 37 foreign mission during the current financial year 2009-10 and the remaining 55 will be equipped with MRP by the financial year 2010-11, the sources said.
When contacted the head of Directorate of Passport, he was unavailable for his comments despite several attempts. However, according to sources the directorate is not renewing the manual passport any more and asks the applicant to get MRP. The most critical fact is that people are facing great problems in obtaining new MRP or getting their older passport renewed.
The Directorate General instead of facilitating the people has further increased their worries as the people have to face unnecessary delay in issuance of passports. Despite greater demand of the passport, there is only one centre in the Federal Capital for issuance of MRP, and it is often seemed flooded with the passport seekers. Even, the directorate has authorised limited branches of National Bank to collect passport fee, despite the fact that it has the authority to authorise more branches of NBP for collection of passport fee.
The sources said the department has issued 8.776 million Machine Readable Passports (MRP) upto September 26 2009 since its introduction on October 24, 2004. They further said that the passport directorate foiled 300 attempts for procurement of Pakistani passports by non-nationals.
The passport directorate earned Rs 15549.635 million from 2007 to July 2009, adding that during last six months the directorate earned Rs 798.754 million. Despite contributing million of rupees to the national exchequer the Directorate of Passport and Immigration is failed to deliver to the people due to lack of resources and manpower.
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