KARACHI: Nadra, passport office make people suffer
By Arman Sabir
KARACHI, May 17: Thousands of people have been barred from getting passports as the National Database Registration Authority blocked their computerised national identity cards without serving on them any prior intimation.
Many people visited the passport offices at Awami Markaz and Saddar to get their passports, where some of them came to know that their computerised national identity cards were blocked and they should get their CNICs cleared from Nadra first to get the passports.
Nadra officials said that at least 250,000 to 300,000 computerised identity cards were blocked as the holders of those cards either got two cards or their family tree was missing. They said that a man, who had not submitted the copy of his father’s identity card, had been blocked and they could not get their passports issued.
Officials evaded the question about giving a prior intimation to those people, whose computerised national identity cards were blocked.
However, the passport officials said that passports were not being issued to the applicants whose photographs on the computerised identity card were blurred. Such applicants were asked to get fresh CNICs before applying for the passport.
It is pertinent to mention here that fresh photograph for passport is taken at the time of submission of passport form.
The system in-charge of the machine readable passports at regional passport office in Saddar, Khalid Musharraf Zuberi said that on an average 1,500 to 2,000 people visited the passport offices to get their passports. Of them, only 10 to 12 people were told that their CNICs carried objections. They were asked to get the objections cleared from Nadra and thereafter they could apply for the passports.
In some cases, the application forms for passport were sent to the headquarters in Islamabad, where it transpired that there was an objection on CNICs and the passports could not be issued.
During half-an-hour stay at the passport office, this scribe saw two applicants, who were asked to get fresh CNICs as their facial features were not clear in the photographs.
A woman, Kibria-ee-Fatima, went to get passport and she deposited Rs4,000 for an urgent passport on April 17, 2006. She was called after five days to collect the passport. When she went to get the passport, she was told that her computerised identity card carried facial error and she had to get it removed first. She said she had deposited fee for an urgent passport as she had to travel abroad to attend her son’s marriage.
She did not have any choice except to go to a Nadra outlet. She surrendered her older identity card and applied for afresh one on April 24, and deposited fee of Rs140. She got the new identity card and went to passport office on May 8 to get the passport. However, the regional passport office wrote to the Directorate General of immigration and passports in Islamabad stating that the applicant produced the fresh CNIC with recent photograph and the passport be issued to her.
She again went to the passport office on May 15, and a reminder letter was sent by the regional office to the Islamabad office again. However, she could not get the passport after the lapse of one month. She asked the authorities if they could explain as to why she was paying the price for the mistake she had never committed.
