ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior was informed that Directorate General Immigration and Passport would introduce an innovative E-Passport System within next two months to ensure maximum facilitation to the applicants.
The system has been developed at a cost of Rs. 534 million and can be termed as clean, secured and fully automated, Director General, Passport and Immigration, Ishrat Ali apprised the parliamentary body which was chaired by Member of National Assembly (MNA) Raja Khurram Shahzad Nawaz here on Wednesday.
The meeting was also attended by MNAs including Sher Akbar Khan, Ijaz Ahmed Shah, Malik Karamat Ali Khokhar, Sardar Talib Hussain Nakai, Muhammad Akhtar Mengal, Nawabzada Shah Zain Bugti, Syed Iftikhar ul Hassan, Nadeem Abbas, Syed Agha Rafiullah, Nawab Muhammad Yousaf Talpur, Abdul Qadir Patel, Maulana
Abdul Akbar Chitrali (Mover) and senior officers of ministry of interior, Immigration and Passport Office, Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).
In a briefing regarding performance and new projects of the Directorate, the DG Passport said the new system, having a chip, would help improve security.
He said both the new and old systems would be run simultaneously, however, initially the fee under E-Passport System would be a bit higher.
He said in view of increasing demand, the Directorate has proposed an allocation of Rs 244.73 million for the year 2019-20 to establish regional passport offices in Mandi Bahauddin, Sukkur, MuzaffarAbad, Sialkot, Abbottabad and Bannu.
Of the total allocation, Rs 150 million has been sought for Immigration Passport Complex (IMPASS).
The meeting was informed that FIA as part of its campaign has nabbed 2675 human smugglers during 2018 while the number of Inter Agency Task Force (IATF) interceptions was 3724 during 2018.
The number of such interception during 2017 was 1727.
Director General (Operations) NADRA informed the Committee that all measures were being adopted to facilitate those seeking Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) and other services of the Authority.
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