Despite clear directives from Interior Minister Rehman Malik on early December to clear the backlog of around 0.4 million applications for passports within a week, no end to the miseries of passport seekers is in sight, a brief visit to Passport office in Karachi revealed here on Monday.
The Pakistanis, who are already frustrated and being forced to go abroad because of unemployment, energy crisis and poor law and order situation, are getting more agitated, due to unusual delay in obtaining passports, despite running from pillar to post for months.
The statement of Rehman Malik regarding operation of passport offices in three shifts and dispose of the backlog of passports within a week had appeared to be a sign of hope for these applicants but all expectations vanished when the office has pasted hand-written announcement at the wall of passport delivery counter that the office is still unable to entertain the applicants of ordinary passports before three months and a month for urgent passport seekers.
Yezdan Yousuf said that he had applied for issuance of passport of his mother, who was diagnosed breast cancer and recommended to go abroad for medical treatment, immediately. But the officers in passport office instead of realising the gravity of the issue refused to facilitate him before a month period.
Similarly, a businessman Mohsin and his family, who had planned to offer Umrah this month, said they had submitted urgent passport applications last month but remained empty hands after two visits to the passport office. Javed Iqbal, Sara Mehmood and Kashif Ali, who are the students of Information Technology and Business Administration in Australia and United Kingdom, feared that they might miss initial classes of new sessions, if the authority failed to renew their passports within a week.
Another applicant Shahid, who is a doctor by profession and planning to go UAE for job, said he had submitted his ordinary passport renewal application in late September and the department had given 15 working days for its delivery but after 10 visits, he was still unable to get his travel document.
Meanwhile, an official in Passport office, who did not want to be quoted, said that no directives had so far been issued after the statement of Rehman Malik. He said that there were unconfirmed reports that the finance division had released some Rs 700 million to the Printing Corporation of Pakistan (PCP) for clearing the backlog but the Directorate despite having a capacity of issuing 15,000 passports daily, was not accelerating the process, which is presently running at the level of 5000 passports daily.
To a question, he said, "I am still unable to understand why such crisis was developed and the authority failed to manage the payments of PCP till its deadline of November 30, albeit over Rs 14 billion, which is 90 percent higher than the total expenditures of the Directorate, is generated, annually from passport applications. He feared that the said crisis would become more severe in coming days, if no remedial measures were taken on urgent basis as the Directorate received around 8000 applications only for fresh passports daily. When contacted, Deputy Director Passport office, he was not available in his office.