KARACHI : Senior Advisor and In charge Federal Ombudsman Regional Office Karachi, Syed Anwaar Hyder, Friday, directed the Immigration and Passport department to enhance staff strength and increase bank counters to further facilitate the citizens in acquiring passport.
Syed Anwar Hyder, during visit of main Immigration and Passport office Saddar Karachi along with associate adviser FOS Karachi Riaz Ahmed Memon, stressed on befitting measures to fast track the process of issuance of Passport particularly printing and lamination of the basic travel document.
He said that the visit of the regional passport office was carried out on the directives of Wafaqi Mohtasib Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi and complete inspection of functional areas and facilities was conducted besides taking briefing from the officials and interaction with the applicants present in the premises.
The senior adviser, while talking to official media at the occasion, informed that a number of applicants complained that they were not receiving their passports on the given dates and they have to pay several visits to the office for receiving their passport.
Citizens intending to go abroad especially students and workers were facing difficulties because of delay in issuance of passport that has mainly being caused due to issues of availability of lamination paper, he said and added that Ombudsman secretariat will recommend government to find out a permanent solution to the issue to ensure issuance of passport on time and saving citizens from hardship.
Syed Anwaar Hyder said that Immigration and Passport department South Zone were issuing more then 500,000 passports annually from Karachi and in average 2500 to 3000 citizens visit the main office at Saddar on daily basis.
Staff and office space was deficient to deal with such a large number of applicants, he observed and asked the officials to deploy more staff and enhance the number of bank counters to cater the large number of applicants in a swift manner.
The Senior Adviser opined that Immigration and Passport department should be developed in line with corporate sector standards like NADRA as it would help further improving its services.
Director Immigration and Passport South Zone Saeed Ahmed briefed at the occasion that district offices for Central, South, West and Keamari districts of Karachi and a special counter for government servants, senior citizens and persons with different abilities were housed at the main Saddar center, district East office was functioning at Awami Markaz while Malir Kala Board office process the applications from Malir and Korangi districts.
There was an executive center in Clifton area that extends services to citizens from all areas of Karachi while a special counter has been set up at Sindh High Court to facilitate the lawyers fraternity, he informed and added that a proposal for establishing district office in Korangi was also under consideration.
He informed that stringent measures were taken to discourage involvement of agents and brokers and several FIRs had also been registered in the regard.
The I&P Saddar Office also issues Hajj passport to a large number of Pilgrims and it would remain opened on Saturday as well to facilitate Hujjaj-e-Karam in receiving their passports.
He lauded the proactive role of Federal Ombudsman in resolving public complaints and stated that intervention by Wafaqi Mohtasib helped improving the services of the department.
Earlier, the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat’s team visited different district offices and counters to inspect facilities being offered to the applicants. They also interacted with the applicants present in the premises, inquired about the services being provided to them.
The senior adviser also listened to complaints and issued at the spot directives to resolve them.
