GWADAR: People of Gwadar are facing difficulties in obtaining their passports as the passport office in the city has been non-operational for the past two months.

According to officials, the net server of the passport office was burnt some two months back and since then the office has been closed. “We have sent the net server to Islamabad for its repair but it has not been sent back by the authorities concerned,” an official told Dawn.

The in-charge and other members of the passport office’s staff were not available at the premises either.

“We have no option but to travel to Turbat for our passport-related issues,” Elahi Bakhsh Baloch, a resident of Gwadar, told Dawn. He said the posts of the office in-charge, data entry operator and supporting staff in Gwadar’s passport office had been lying vacant for a long time.

Members of civil society have called upon the authorities concerned at the Directorate General of Immigration & Passports’ headquarters in Islamabad to take notice of the situation and make arrangements for re-opening of the passport office in Gwadar.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2018