Except Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the performance of other attached departments of Ministry of Interior including Immigration and Passport (I&P), National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA), National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) and civil armed forces have improved during the stewardship of Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan.
According to official sources, the FIA has not been able to make significant progress in the investigation of mega corruption scams involving high profile figures including former Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, former minister Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain, and former defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar in cases like Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI), Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TADAP) and Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPD) scam.
Additional scams where no tangible results have emerged include involvement of PSO employees in fraud, forgery impersonation, cheating and misrepresentation, corruption in Afghan refugee camps, Staff colony Golen Gol and Utility Stores Co-operation (USC).
However, sources said that the Agency recovered Rs 14.6 billion during the last three and a half years in various corruption cases - a very small percentage amount given the scale of daily corruption estimated at Rs 6 to 7 billion by former Chairman NAB.
They said that following the directives of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, FIA launched countrywide campaign against proclaimed offenders and has arrested 500 proclaimed offenders. The agency also blacklisted passports of 1139 proclaimed offenders and blocked 872 CNICs during the campaign, they further said.
The attached departments of Ministry of Interior include NADRA, I&P, NACTA, FIA, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration, Narcotics Control Division (NCD), Civil armed forces including Sindh and Punjab Rangers, Frontier Constabulary (FC) and Pakistan Coast Guard, Civil Defence.
Pakistan Rangers Sindh is widely deployed in aid of police for maintenance of law and order. The Karachi operation which began in September 2015 led to a 69 percent decline in incidents of target killing, 50 percent decline in murder cases, 80 percent decline in terror incidents and incidents of robberies reduced by 30 percent, according to official accounts.
Despite improvement in law and order in Karachi, the operation, however, widened the trust deficit between Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan People's Party (PPP) which is in power in Sindh province, sources added.
The sources further said that NACTA which is one of the key anti terror organisations in the country was made operational during the present government which was earlier a dormant body and existed only on paper and is now a major supplement to state security institutions.
During the tenure of previous government, NACTA was housed in a rented building with a small number of staff and inadequate funds. But the present government not only released the required funds but also resolved the issues of infrastructure and human resources.
According to an official of NACTA, at present there are 104 officers working in NACTA performing various duties that fall under the mandate of the Authority. He said that the budget of the organisation for the year 2016-17 stands at Rs 1.450 billion, which is enough for its different assignments in a year.
The I&P Directorate, which is another attached department of the Ministry, has also improved its performance over the period.
Acting on illegal issuance of passports, the I&P directorate cancelled over 3000 officials and diplomatic passports which were earlier issued to ineligible persons during the years 2008-2013. A backlog of over 50,000 passports pending issuance was cleared and the clogged system of passport issue was dealt with.
The production capacity of the directorate was around 2 million passports per year from 2004 to 2013, which has been increased to around 4 million passports per annum. Online complaint management system and online passport tracking system has also been introduced.
NADRA has also significantly streamlined its operation and strengthened its monitoring system which has ensured prevention of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) to non-nationals as well as timely provision of CNICs to applicants.
During national re-verification of Computerised National Identity Card (CNICs), it identified 86,340 fake CNICs and blocked them. During the campaign, NADRA sent SMS to 101 million citizens.
NADRA has conducted biometric verification of mobile SIM cards for telecommunication companies aimed at stopping the illegal use of unauthorised SIMs.
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