The passport printing crisis in Pakistan has intensified as the country now faces a shortage of ink, following an earlier scarcity of lamination paper. This situation has led to an increasing backlog of passport applications, causing further delays for citizens.
Sources report that Pakistan has exhausted its ink supply needed for printing passports, severely disrupting the production process. A new shipment of ink is expected to arrive in Islamabad on July 28, but delays in clearing the consignment through customs have raised concerns.
The Director General (DG) of Passports has sent a letter to the Customs authorities, urgently requesting expedited clearance of the ink shipment. The letter emphasizes that due to a lack of funds and non-payment of customs duties and taxes, there have been significant delays in clearing consignments.
The letter states that maintaining passport productivity has become challenging due to these delays. The DG assures that payments to the Customs department will be settled within 15 days of the shipment’s clearance and stresses the urgency of prioritizing the ink consignment to alleviate the backlog and resume normal passport printing operations.
The DG’s letter requests that Customs clear the ink shipment immediately on a deferred payment basis.
The situation remains critical as the delay in clearing the ink consignment threatens to extend the waiting time for passport applicants, who are already experiencing significant delays
