MUZAFFARGARH: Passport officials are allegedly minting money from applicants through agents who are sitting outside the passport office.

Dawn learnt that a normal passport was supposed to be delivered in a week after an applicant deposited Rs3,000 fee with the treasury while agents were getting Rs4,000 for each case and without an agent no applicantcould getthe passport.

Talking to this correspondent, an agent claimed he earned Rs3,000 to Rs4,000 on a daily basis and gave Rs600 to the pass-port officer for each form. For a passport, no document of applicant is needed except his or her computerised national identity card.

When an applicant, Qamar Abbas, tried tobypassagents,hehadtovisitthepassport office time and again.

Abbas said: `I am a student of MA in Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, and a Muzaffargarh resident. I need an urgent passport to apply to a foreign university for higher education.

He said he went to the passport office where he was told that an urgent fee challan would be submitted to the National Bank.

He went to the bank and deposited the fee.When he visited the passport office for the second time, an official asked him to bring attested copies of matriculation to MA certificates. He went back and came the next day with attested documents.

Abbas said the passport office in-charge sent him back to bring voter lists from the election of fice.

He said he went there and took slip of the voter list after paying Rs200 `bribe`. Then the official asked him to bring original CNICs of his parents.

Qamar Abbas claimed he spent more than Rs2,000 on these trips and getting documents. Later an agent called him and asl
A passport official requesting anonymity said the amount collected by agents was shared with Multan and regional staf fers as well.

When contacted, passport in-charge Abdul Majeed Janbaz said some agents were being supported by elected representatives and religious groups, so he could not take action against them.

People have demanded that Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar take action againstpassportofHcials and agents.