Our interior ministry has once again reminded us that all manual passports will expire on June 30, 2006 no matter what expiry date it carries and the applicant will have to apply for machine readable passport. The Interior Ministry had on October 25, 2004 through print media advertisements, informed the public that the government has started issuing machine readable passports.

One of my friends from Abbottabad got his passport made in January 2005 but he has been issued a manual passport. Similarly, another friend of mine from Multan got his wife's passport made and he too was issued a manual passport. Both these applicants were charged Rs 1500, but the question is that both these applicants will have to spend another Rs 2100 in July 2006 to get a machine readable passport.

The ministry of interior must clarify as to why manual passports are still being issued when the centres for machine readable passports are already working in major cities of Pakistan.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2005