Ishrat Ali, Directorate General Immigration and Passport at the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Interior made an announcement that an innovative E-Passport System is soon to be available to the masses in the next two months.
During the briefing, he informed the parliamentary body about the performance of the new system, “The system has been developed at a cost of Rs. 534 million and can be described as clean, secure and fully automated.” According to him, a particular chip within the system is to help with the security.
According to the DG, the department would run both new and old systems simultaneously.
However, the fee for the E-Passport is a bit higher than the regular one.
He added, that there has been an increase of demand and that the directorate has sought an allocation of Rs. 244.73 million to establish regional passport offices in Mandi Bahauddin, Sukkur, Muzaffarabad, Sialkot, Abbottabad, and Bannu. Out of the total allocation, Rs. 150 million will be spent on Immigration Passport Complex (IMPASS).