—- Shortage of lamination paper ‘suspends’ issuance of passports
ISLAMABAD: Issuance of Pakistan passports has been suspended across the country due to the shortage of lamination papers.
Sources privy to the development said the Pakistan offices are receiving up to 25,000 applications for renewal or issuance of passports on a daily basis, but due to a shortage of lamination paper in the country, the backlog has now reached 500,000.
The interior ministry sources said, the order for lamination paper has been placed by Pakistan and they will get the order in a week.
It is feared that the backlog of Pakistani passport prints will reach one million as orders will reach Pakistan in a week and will take about seven more days to clearance from customs. Earlier, the official delivery timing for the issuance of passports was modified. As per details, the passport department recently issued a notification outlining the revised passport delivery schedules. For regular passport applications, the delivery time had been extended to a maximum of 21 working days, compared to the previous 10-day timeframe. Earlier last week, The system of passport issuance remained suspended across Pakistan for more than two hours after developing a technical glitch.
The sources said the system connected with the NADRA database suddenly ‘collapsed’ due to a technical fault, promoting the suspension of the passport issuance process across Pakistan. –Agencies
