Pakistan to get E-passport system within two months

To ensure maximum facilities to the applicants, the Directorate General Immigration and Passport has announced an “E-passport system” which will be available to the public within the next two months. Director Ishrat Ali made this announcement while briefing the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Interior.

Ishrat Ali, in this meeting, said, “The system has been developed at a cost of Rs 534 million and can be described as clean, secure and fully automated”.

In the briefing regarding the performance and new projects initiated by the Directorate, the DG said that the new chip-enabled system will help improve security. He also said that the new and old systems will run simultaneously, but the fee charged under the new E-passport system will be slightly higher in the beginning.

Furthermore, he also argued that due to the increase in the demand for passport, the directorate has suggested the government to allocate Rs. 244.73 million to establish regional offices in Mandi Bahauddin, Sukkur, Muzaffarabad, Sialkot, Abbottabad, and Bannu, for the year 2019-2020. Out of the total allocation, the directorate has sought Rs. 150 million for Immigration Passport Complex (IMPASS).

He informed the committee that the FIA captured 2,675 human smugglers in 2018 while the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) captured the total of 3,724 smugglers during the same period.

Ishrat Ali said that all these measures are taken to facilitate those citizens who are seeking Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) and other services and the mega facilitation centres are running round the clock to provide the best possible facilities to all the CNIC seekers and to meet the growing demand in the country.

Senior members of the Ministry of Interior, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Immigration and Passport Office, and the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) also attended the meeting.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister launched an online Visa facility for 175 countries, to attract foreign investment and to boost tourism in the country.