Official says they are printing 20,000 passports per day. PHOTO: FILE
Till mid-April, as many as 800,000 applicants were waiting for their new passports since the authorities had run out of the laminates and a court order suspended the government from procuring new ones from its designated supplier.
But the Director General Immigration and Passports (I&P) Dr Zulfiqar Ahmed Cheema in a media briefing on Monday said that all passports pending for months with the department due to lamination crisis have been printed and shipped to respective countries.
The backlog has been halved on the national front too with only four hundred thousand passports pending printing. This, Cheema hoped, would be completely eradicated by June 15, pointing out that his department was printing 20, 000 passports a day.
Laminate is the specially designated paper used for passports. By mid-April the backlog had reached 800, 000 while the passport department was left with only 90, 000 laminates.
However, the department managed to reduce the backlog as the department managed to recover 300, 000 laminates in damages. Then, after the court relaxed its stay order, it was able to order another 1.5 million laminates from it US supplier OpSec after securing a special permission from Prime Minister.
COMMENTS (5)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
A big shame to the government officials and passport department country people is losing their jobs and many of them waiting for the passport since 7 months a big shame to our government as well as supreme court the master of sou moto
Tomorrow the court would put stay orders on patient lifes too The judge should be punished
Very good news........after a long period of dismay
However, the department managed to reduce the backlog as the department managed to recover 300, 000 laminates in damages. Then, after the court relaxed its stay order, it was able to order another 1.5 million laminates from it US supplier OpSec after securing a special permission from Prime Minister.
Please elaborate. This makes no sense at all. Recovered damages from whom? OpSec? Why was this matter in court? Which court was it in? Why was there a stay order?
Liberate us.
Under the present circumtances, I would suggest to urgent passport applicants to apply at least 6 months before the expiry of their valid passport and ordinary passport applicants should apply at least one year before the actual expiry of their present valid passports.
The way passport department is functioning, no body knows, if the backlog would finish by the end of this fiscal year or not.