LAHORE, Jan 10: The interior ministry will install a Machine Readable Passport System (MRPS) in six months at the country's 40 passport offices to check the validity of travel documents.

This was told to Governor Khalid Maqbool at a briefing by the federal investigation officers at the Lahore passport office on Saturday.

After the implementation of the project, which would cost an estimated Rs2.83 billion, the travel agent mafia could not prepare fake documents to facilitate the travel of those aspiring to go abroad, they said, adding that the MRPS would help control the menace of human smuggling.

Besides, under the new system, people would not have to fill lengthy passport forms, they said.

Lahore FIA director Tanvir Ahmad said the interior ministry had suspended 61 employees of different passport offices in the country on different charges.

He said during the last year one million passports were issued and after December, 2003, the passports were being issued on the computerized identity cards.

He said the passport office would be shifted from the Abbot Road to Garden Town in June.