ISLAMABAD: The director general of Immigration and Passports, Mustafa Jamal Kazi, on Monday assured a panel of the National Assembly that the backlog of passports will be cleared by Dec 15.

As the National Assembly’s standing committee on Interior met here with Raja Khurram Nawaz in the chair, members voiced alarm over huge delays in the issuance of passports even to the people who had applied in the urgent category.

The Passports DG claimed the backlog of applications in the fast track category had already been cleared and the applications in the urgent and normal categories would be processed in around a mo­­nth. He told the committee that the backlog at present was around a quarter million.

He also informed the committee that while the directorate generated the revenue of Rs50 billion from the passport fees over the past six months, it still faced bureaucratic red-tape and hurdles. He said the monthly approval required from the austerity committee to import lamination paper sometimes led to delays which kept the backlog increasing.

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“We are given targets, but not the funds required to meet them,” he remarked.

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Mr Kazi said the department had the capacity to print 22,000 passports daily against a demand of 75,000 applications. The situation improved with the inclusion of more printing machines into the system, he said.

The Passports DG acknowledged that the department was relying on an outdated technology. To address these limitations and improve efficiency, he said they recently acquired advanced machines and printers from Germany, which are expected to enhance both the printing capacity and the quality of passports.

To overcome bureaucratic hurdles in the release of the required budget, Mr Kazi informed the committee that it had been proposed to convert the directorate into an authority, but the finance ministry opposed the proposal.

He appealed to the committee to help them finalise a revenue-sharing formula with the finance division. The committee assured the Passports DG of its support in facilitating his requests to streamline the issuance process to reduce delays.

MNA Sehar Kamran, who had raised the issue of passports’ backlog in the National Assembly, said that long delays had badly affected the people needing passports for travel, employment and medical purposes.

She highlighted the problems being faced by students, patients and workers due to delays in the passports’ issuance. The backlog, she noted, had been growing since 2022, with no action taken to resolve the worsening situation.

Sehar Kamran sought an update on the measures implemented to tackle the crisis. In response, the Passports DG said the department was relying on a 20-year-old software and 30-year-old printing equipment.

To imp­rove efficiency, he said, the directorate recently imported advanced machines and printers from Germany, which are expected to enhance printing capacity and passports quality.

MNA Sehar Kamran recommended a performance audit of the Directorate General of Immigration & Passports to determine accountability and prevent a recurrence of the current backlog issue.

She regretted people were suffering due to delays in passports’ issuance.

The committee head then summoned finance ministry officials for Tuesday to discuss funds availability for passport department.

Some lawmakers, including Zartaj Gul and Sahibzada Hamid Raza complained that there was an inordinate delay in issuance of passports to them.

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PTI’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, Zartaj Gul, said she had not been issued a passport even after recommendation of the committee. Another PTI leader Hamid Raza said he had been waiting for his renewed passport, adding that FIA was creating hurdles in issuance of passport to him.

On this, the chair ruled that the directorate general should immediately issue passports to lawmakers.

Meanwhile, all members of the panel opposed a government bill that seeks to give powers to police to check electricity theft, saying the same will be used for political victimisation.

MNA Hamid Raza said that cases had already been registered against nine lawmakers of Punjab Assembly on sham charges of electricity theft.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024