The corrupt management of Directorate General of Immigration and Passports (DGI&P) is behind the crisis of passports manufacturing and issuance when the backlog of passports has jumped to unprecedented figure of more than 800,000, TheNation has learnt.Well-placed sources said that the management was using different tactics to create ‘artificial crisis’ due to vested interests and to earn more money as bribe from those applicants who were in dire need of new passports to travel abroad. “And if you have extra money to give bribe then you will find the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports open till 10:00pm at night to make such shady deals,” a sources ware of the development claimed.“

If you have to get a passport early even after the paying of urgent fees, you would have to get prioritised it from the quota of Director General (DG) Immigration and Passports Syed Wajid Bokhari or Project Director (PD) Machine Readable Passport (PRP) Project, Maqbool Ahmed Gondal,” an official of the passport said on the condition of anonymity.“

And for this purpose, you will have to pay extra money ranging from 5000 to 20,000 as bribe to lower grade officials or some agent,” the official further said, adding that as the backlog of passports had increased up to 800000, the rate of this ‘extra money had increased up to 20, 0000 from two thousand.According to official sources, Wajid Bokhari had got prioritised 25000 passports during the recent two months while the quota of Maqbool Ahmed Gondal had increased even from DG as 27000 passports were on his priority list.

While a civilian agency has a report that as many as 1,64000 passports were issued on the priority list of DG Passports since he was appointed on the post, the sources disclosed.TheNation has learnt on good authority that the management of passport office is behind the whole scene as it had made efforts in past to create artificial crisis of passports.

The passport office had total 210,000 laminate papers in March when the Ministry of Interior was informed by the passports directorate that it had very limited number of such papers. After this, the management stopped the printing of passports to create artificial crisis, as senior official confirmed.

At that time, the directorate had a pendency of around 2,0000 urgent passports that could be cleared but the management did not do that.Similarly, the DG Passports and Project Director MRP Project used delaying tactics to award the contract to a new firm for the import of laminate papers after the contract of the previous firm expired and all was done to create the mock crisis.Another senior official of the passports directorate said that the previous vendor that was responsible for the import of laminate papers was bound under the written contract with the directorate to provide free of cost those laminate papers that would be expired during the manufacturing process.

The directorate had as many as 3,000,00 laminate papers that were expired and the management did not timely sought fresh laminate papers as the replacement due to the reasons unknown. The official informed that now the directorate had asked that firm to provide such papers when the backlog had crossed the figure of 8,000,00 passports. “

These have been ordered a day ago,” the official said.“My family has applied for passports after paying urgent government fee (Rs 5100 for each passport) to proceed for the performance of Umrah, but we have not been issued passports despite the passage of two months,” an applicant told the Nation from Abbottabad through phone.

Now a passport official has asked me to pay as 20,000 for each passport as bribe and as a result we will get our passports in a day or two, he said wishing his name should not be made public. Maqbool Gondal could not be contacted as he refused to meet this scribe when a message was sent through a security guard deputed at the passport office here on Tuesday to have his viewpoint.

The guard replied in the same when he was asked for a meeting with DG Passport to have his version. Different attempts were made to contact DG Passports but he did not respond.