27 October 2004	Wednesday	12 Ramazan 1425

KARACHI, Oct 26: A large number of applicants seeking machine-readable passports (MRPs) thronged the passport office outlet in the Awami Markaz on Sharea Faisal on Tuesday.

A majority of the applicants, most of whom were senior citizen, women and children complained of the slow pace of data processing at the outlet. They felt further agonized when the power supply to the new outlet was disrupted for half an hour, logging out the computer system. However, power was restored soon by the staff specially deputed there by the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra).

Ironically, the passport outlet has no back-up power supply system. Moreover, there were no Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) units attached to the computer network.

Most of the passport seekers were dismayed over the abrupt enhancement of the processing fee from Rs1,500 to Rs2,100 for the ordinary MRPs. "I came here with Rs1,500, as I didn't know the fee has been increased. Now I will have to come again tomorrow," an applicant said.

An applicant for urgent passport became furious when he learnt that he would get the MRP after five days after depositing Rs4,000 as fee. "What's the point of processing the application on an urgent basis when the passport would be issued after five days" he remarked.

There were only three bank counters at the outlet, one for women and the other two for men, where people had to wait for hours in queues to deposit the processing fees for the MRPs. "It has been well over two hours and I am still waiting for my turn", Ali Raza, an applicant for ordinary passport said.

M Sadqain, an urgent MRP seeker, said that the bank challans (receipts) were not available, and he had to get it photocopied himself. "I have been waiting for my turn for the past two hours, as there is no separate counter for the urgent passport seekers. Why they charge Rs4,000, when the applicant is not entertained smoothly," he argued.

Another applicant, Mohsin Malik, said he visited the passport outlet around 11am on Monday. "I remained here till 3pm, but my turn was still far away, so I left the office and came here again and still waiting. But the good thing is that no body is getting his or her application processed out of turn," he said.

Director, Passport Office, Karachi, Ijaz Khan, told Dawn that the new spacious outlet was located on 5,000 sq-feet. "There are certain teething problems, which would be sorted out with the passage of time, as the new system was yet to be streamlined fully", he said.

He said that the new outlet had the infrastructural facilities to process as many as 850 applications a day.

He said there were four token counters, where customer services assistants were giving the applicants token numbers and guiding them to the waiting areas. "There are also four Biometric counters, where the biometric capture assistants were digitally capturing the fingerprints of the applicants," he added.

The director said the applicants were being digitally captured at four photograph capture counters. "As many as 14 data-entry counters have also been established in the outlet, where personal data of the passport seekers was entered", he said.

As for the applicants, who were bed-ridden due to some ailment, Mr Khan said the department was aware of this problem, and added that something might be done very shortly in this regard.

He said with the introduction of the MRPs, the possibility of issuance of a fake passport was "almost zero". "This is the most modern system and any foul play in this technology was absolutely out of question."

To a question, he said no manual passport would be issued onward, and those who had already got their applications processed at the old offices of the department, located at the Shahrah-i-Iraq, Saddar, would get their passports issued from there on the due dates, accordingly. He added the Saddar offices would remain functional for administration purposes.