KARACHI: 850 passports being issued at Saddar office daily
By Tahir Siddiqui
KARACHI, Sept 14: Over 850 applications for the machine readable passports are being processed at the Saddar passport office daily. Officials said that the passport office in Saddar is issuing machine readable passports to applicants from South, Central, West and Malir districts, while its outlet at Awami Markaz was receiving applications from district East, and the working at both the places is going on in a smooth manner.
At Saddar Passport Office, separate sections have been set up for South and Central districts, and one section has been designated for applicants from West and Malir districts.
A separate section is functional exclusively for government employees and senior citizens.
The officials said the customer services counters have also been established to guide the applicants at the Saddar office.
They said the processing of the passport application has been simplified as the applicants are now no more required to bring photographs and other documents. Only original computerised national identity card is a must for applying for the MRP.
The applicants who hold valid or expired manual passports are, however, required to bring with them their manual passports for insertion of their old passports’ numbers in the MRPs and in the database.
Each of the four sections has two token counters where customer service assistants issue token numbers to the applicants and guide them to the waiting areas; at two biometric counters finger prints of the applicants are captured; while two photo-capture counters and four data entry counters facilitate the applicants.
The officials said around 250 to 300 applicants each from South and Central districts get their application processed daily. Besides, the passport office receives around 150 applications from district West and 70 from Malir. Moreover, over 150 applications from government officials are received daily. The passport office also has a 135KV power generator.
About valid manual passports, the officials said they would remain valid till their date of expiry and the passport holders won’t have to replace them with the MRPs.
The officials said that now the new system had been streamlined fully after overcoming certain teething problems with the passage of time.
They said that with the introduction of the MRPs, the possibility of issuance of fake passports are “almost zero”. “Any foul play is absolutely out of question”, they said.
The officials said the adult male applicants were to enter the passport office alone. However, children, women and senior citizen could be escorted by chaperones.
Meanwhile, a senior official of the passport and immigration department said that the department was issuing around 6,000 to 7,000 passports daily in 24 cities across the country. The maximum number of passports, which is around 1,000 each, is issued in Karachi and Lahore.
Besides, he said, the department’s outlets at Pakistani missions in Dubai and Jeddah are already operational where overseas Pakistanis are being issued MRPs.
“We have also completed installation and testing of the MRP system in Pakistan’s mission in London and Frankfurt, where overseas Pakistanis could process their applications for MRPs shortly”, he added.
The official said the federal authorities have initially approved installation of MRP system in Pakistani missions in 10 different countries.
“The new system would be installed in Oslo and Rome within two or three weeks, while efforts were also being made to install the new system in Toronto, New York, Los Angels and New Delhi”, he added.
