Passport offices to remain open on Saturday

KARACHI: In view of the extraordinary crowd, the Directorate General of Immigration & Passports on Friday notified that the regional passport offices will remain open on Saturday (tomorrow) across the country, ARY News reported on Friday.

In recent days, the reports of an unexpected increase in the fees for Pakistani passports went viral on social media, after which the citizens crowded the passport offices, while the interior ministry termed the media reports ‘baseless’.

The circular issued by the Director General of Immigration and Passport stated that the passport offices of Central Punjab Zone, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Zone, Nath Punjab/Azad Kashmir/Gilgit Baltistan Zone, Sindh Zone, Balochistan Zone, South Punjab Zone and Headquarters Zone-specific regional passport offices will remain open on Saturday, February 11.

The citizens who have deposited the passport fee online or in the bank got entertained in the passport offices on Saturday, February 11, from 8 am to 2 am.

Director Immigration and Passport Sindh Khalid Memon have said that 13 passport offices of Sindh, including Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sanghar, Tando Ullah Yar, Mirpur Khas, Khairpur, Qamber Shahdad Kot, Sukkur, Nawabshah, Dadu, Ghotki and Matiari will open tomorrow.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Federal Interior Ministry rebuffed the rumours regarding the increase in machine-readable passport fees.

In a statement, an Interior Ministry spokesperson termed the reports of an increase in machine-readable passport fees ‘baseless’, saying that the government has not increased any fee.

Furthermore, the spokesperson said that the Immigration and Passport Department had recently fixed the fee for e-passports, while simple passport fees are the same as before.