In Pakistan, the Interior Ministry has confirmed that the country is receiving 45,000 to 50,000 applications for new passports every day. Under the current arrangements and resources, we can issue only 20 to 22 thousand travel documents per day.
Officials have described this as the main reason for the delay in the issuance of new passports.
In response to a question given by interior ministry to the National Assembly, he said that the system was introduced in 2004 for the issuance of modern machine-readable passports.
At that time it was sufficient to meet the requirement of 30 regional passport offices and 10 foreign missions established within Pakistan, but now the number of regional offices has expanded to 223 and 93 missions abroad.
The Home Minister says that the facilities such as modern technology and equipment in place in the country have never been provided to deal with this increase.
The delay in obtaining a new travel document became serious from the beginning of 2024. Pakistanis wishing to travel abroad faced delays of several months.
According to the authorities, they faced a shortage of passport paper at the end of November last year, after which the delay in getting passports started, which continues to some extent till today.
To cope with the increasing applications for new passports bridge the gap in printing capacity and facilitate applicants on an urgent basis, the department has made the preparation operational in three shifts 24/7, the Home Minister said.
Additionally, the strategy of printing passports at RPOs in major cities i.e. Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Lahoand, and re, Mulan, etc. has been adopted and sent to their respective destinations.
The ministry said that it has initiated a process for the procurement of 20 Delta printers and 20 laminators in January 2024. It takes nine to 10 months to manufacture these customized / specialized printers/laminators.
A purchase order in this regard has already been placed and is expected to be delivered by the end of October, which will significantly increase production capacity.
Apart from this, the department placed another purchase order on July 26, 2024, for the purchase of six desktop printers and two e-passport machines.
Delivery of these printers/machines is expected by November 2024. The government says the department will be able to clear the backlog of passport applications on a priority basis once the new printers/machinery are installed at the production center.
Increase in Fees
On one hand, Pakistani citizens were facing delays, on the other hand, the government has also increased its fees.
The government has also introduced another category of fast track, apart from urgent, for citizens traveling due to emergency reasons, which has the highest fee.
The normal fee for a five-year passport based on thirty-six pages was increased from Rs.3,000 to Rs.4,500.
However, the fee for an urgent passport with thirty-six pages has been increased from Rs.5,000 to Rs.8,500.
Similarly, the normal fee for a 36-page passport of 10 years duration is Rs.7700. While the fee for an urgent one has been reduced to Rs.12,200. It also includes service charges of Rs.
