News
Friday, December 09, 2011
30 new passport offices abroad soon, says Malik* MRP will now also contain name of the mother
ISLAMABAD: Directorate General of Passport and Immigration (DGPI) would open its 30 new offices in different cities of 21 countries to facilitate overseas Pakistanis.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik, on Thursday, directed the concerned department to expedite the process and has given three months time for setting up such offices with facilities to issue Machine Readable Passport (MRP).
These offices would be established at Damam in Saudi Arabia, Rasul Khema, Sharjah and Al-Ain, in United Arab Emirates (UAE), Salah in Oman, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon and Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow in United Kingdom, Paris in France, Valencia and Barcelona in Spain, Milan in Italy, Austria, Netherlands, Tokyo, Beijing, Seoul, Moscow, Berlin and Bonn in Germany, Dublin in Ireland, Ottawa in Canada, Jakarta in Indonesia and Houston, Washington, Chicago and Arizona in United States.
Malik, who chaired a meeting also directed that staff strength of Passport and Immigration Directorate should be increased in every office abroad with two extra passport officials posted immediately to facilitate the process of issuance of MRPs.
The minister said the offices which have already been developed at Chakwal and Haripur should start working from January 15, 2012. DG Passport was directed to expedite all the logistics and other formalities to ensure the inauguration of the offices from the given deadline.
The other decision taken during the meeting that on the demand of overseas Pakistanis, the MRP will now contain the name of the mother in addition to the existing particulars and all new passports will be printed with the extra column of mother’s name in it.
Any overseas Pakistani who has sent more than $50,000 per annum through legal channels, would be given Gratis passport with special VIP treatment to him and to his family.
He directed the DG Passport to form an Overseas Pakistani Passport Committee (OPPC) which will give suggestions from time to time on the complaints regarding passports.
It will be the responsibility of the officer in-charge of the passport office to nominate three names from every country to ensure that they have good reputation for considerable work done by them for the Pakistani community in the respective countries.
The minister also took serious notice of complaints in the passport offices. He directed to make corruption-free Directorate of Passports and Immigration. Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was directed to do sting operations and public has been requested to register a complaint to the National Crisis Management Cell.
Rehman also ordered an inquiry regarding issuance of visit visas to Afghan nationals who have been staying in Pakistan for the last thirty-five years under visit visa and also issuance of visas to Indians without prior approval and completing the required formalities.
He instructed Interior Secretary and DG Passport to register a housing society for the welfare of employees of DGPI and to finalise all required formalities within four weeks.
He said foreign posting should be given to only those who have clean record with sufficient seniority and he has made a panel headed by Secretary Interior, DG PI as member and one Additional Director FIA as member for the scrutiny of the foreign postings. This process should be completed in one week’s time. app
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk