Ch. Nisar approves establishment of 73 new district passport offices
Nisar also ordered to cancel arm license of anyone who fails to renew license before 31 December
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Wednesday approved establishment of 73 district passport offices and 15 executive offices within 15 months, across the country to facilitate people, reported Dunya News. Nisar also ordered to cancel the arm license of anyone who fails to renew their license before 31 December, 2015, he was chairing a high level meeting of interior ministry in Islamabad.
The meeting was held to discuss the issues like Safe City project, new passport offices and arm licenses. After the completion of new passport offices, every district of Pakistan will have its own passport office while the project will cost more than 600 million rupees. The home minister also ordered to provide online passport application system for overseas Pakistanis as soon as possible.
The establishment of 15 new executive centers for passport is also part of the project. In the beginning, the centers in Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi will be completed beforel the first month of 2016 while the remaining centers will be completed before September 2016.
Answering a question about arm licenses, representative of home ministry said that the ministry of interior has issued 4 lac, 25 thousand, 2 hundred and 61 licenses since 1973. He said that 3 lac, 52 thousand, 8 hundred and 43 licenses are manual and the process of renewing these licenses is being carried out right now.
Ministry stated that NADRA has received 1 lac, 71 thousand and 33 application of arm license renewal so far while the rest of the license holders have not contacted the authorities yet.
Also read: Islamabad: Nisar directs simplifying of passport renewal process
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has on Sunday ordered further simplifying of passport renewal process. He has ordered DG Passport to come up with new policy in this regard within one month, reported Dunya News.
According to spokesperson for Interior Ministry, Interior Minister took notice of the media reports and directed to simplify the passport renewal process. Spokesperson told that the renewal will be possible from any passport office within Pakistan or abroad.
Previously, the renewal of the passport was possible only from the city of residence according to the National Identity Card (NIC). Spokesperson also praised media’s guidance for the betterment of the systems in government offices and for addressing the problems faced by the public.
