Do you have yours?: Thousands of passports unclaimed

PESHAWAR: “There are more than five thousand passports that have been printed but are waiting to be collected by applicants,” said Passport Office Director Sharif Khan. He explained the Peshawar office faces a problem different from printing delays which beleaguered offices around the country. A backlog of about 1.4 million passports from the previous government had been cleared in around 42 days, with over 30,000 passports printed everyday. With this new system, around 800 passports are now printed daily by the Peshawar branch – the problem is people are not coming to collect them. Faced with a new dilemma, the department is collecting data of the applicants and calling them individually, asking them to collect their passports. “The reason is probably that people are so disheartened by the performance of the directorate that they have given up all hope,” said another official.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th,2013.