THE passport office in Saddar, Karachi, seems to be still struggling to learn the meaning and significance of surname. I visited the passport office recently to apply for my granddaughter’s passport who is aged just seven months. Her parents were also present.

When my son told the data operator to write our surname, Suriya, in the column given for surname, the data operator refused to do that and instead wrote my son’s name even though the surname is mentioned on our CNICs as well. The passport office needs to be taught the difference between father’s name and surname.

Then the data operator demanded original B-form which my son had unfortunately forgotten to carry in a hurry, but he did have a photocopy of it. He was made to go home and bring the original which took almost an hour. The data operator could have verified the photocopy of B-form from the Nadra system as he had full access to the entire database, but chose not to.

After completing the entire process, the officer concerned refused to accept the passport form and asked us to get it attested by a gazetted government official along with his name, designation, CNIC and cell phone number.

My son argued that he and his wife already had their passports and the child was just a minor, but the officer had no time for such trivialities. The process of attestation delayed the submission of the form by one whole day as the submission counter closes at 1pm.

And while we are at it, I wish to point out that a sum of Rs25 is being levied as bank charges along with Rs4 as federal excise duty on every form submission. I wonder if accepting a challan is such a herculean task for the National Bank of Pakistan that they charge Rs29 for it.

I urge the interior ministry to take notice of such issues and bring some improvement in this regard.

M. Rafique Zakaria
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2021