Getting passport in Pakistan without hassle

We have all experienced the long queues and incessant chatter of agents outside passport offices. This post will help you circumvent most queues and allow you to get a passport with ease. Be sure to follow these guidelines:

1. Payment: You are required to pay a fee for getting your passport printed. You have the option of getting an urgent or normal delivery passport. (Normal passport arrives in whereas Urgent arrives in 4 days). Update: DGIP has introduced a method for ONLINE payment  called Passport fee Asaan)

In addition, you can get a passport for 5 or 10 years validity and have the option of 36, 72 or 100 pages. The payment structure for MRP passport as follows:

Payment in Rs.	Normal (10 days delivery)		Urgent (4 days delivery)
Pages / Validity	5 YEAR	10 YEAR	5 YEAR	10 YEAR
36 pages	3,000	4,500	5,000	7,500
72 pages	5,500	8,250	9,000	13,500
100 pages	6,000	9,000	12,000	18,000

Price correct as of Jul 2023

Decide on what you need and deposit this amount in National Bank. There is an NBP booth at Lahore Garden Town Passport office, but I recommend depositing this fee a day before going to the passport office. With the launch of Passport Fee Asaan, avoid going to the bank and pay online through the link above. In case you STILL want to pay at a bank, do it 1 day before the day you plan to go to the Passport Office.

You will need to print and fill this slip: https://www.nbp.com.pk/Forms-Applications/PassportChallanForm.pdf to be able to pay

And here are the branches of NBP that accept this payment: http://www.dgip.gov.pk/Files/Banks.aspx
Now you can deposit fee in any branch of NBP

Remember, you SHOULD deposit this fee a DAY before going to the office OR use Passport Fee Asaan online paymenr method.

2. Documents needed:

For a citizen's passport you need:
A. Your original CNIC and 2 copies of your CNIC (for children less than 18, Form B and need a guardian to accompany them)
B. Your previous passport and 1 copy of it  (if available)
C. Challan copy showing you have paid the passport fee

Get this done before going to the passport office.

3. Which office:

Here's a list of passport offices in Pakistan: http://www.dgip.gov.pk/files/Offices.aspx

The DGIP has also introduced an "e-passport" which is different than an MRP because it has an embedded chip. Both are being issues and acceptable for travel. However, "e-passport" fee is higher (see here) and the roll-out is only in Islamabad for now.

------

Why I posted the above method is to help first time Passport Applicants from the Mafia of agents who feed the Passport Office officials, guards, employees as well. 

It was 2006, when I decided to get my passport made, and we chose the Barket Market Passport Office for the deed. However, we survived a callous attempt by an agent to scam money extra money out of us.

We decided to get normal passports for me and my father, so Rs. 4,200 would be the cost. As the lines were long and we were new to the process, we were coaxed by an agent to rent his services. First, we gave them Rs. 4,500 to deposit in the bank against the passport fee. The remaining Rs. 300 was pocketed by the agent on account of "too much heat" in the bank. 

Second, we were only helped in getting inside the Passport Office. All other processes, we had to carry out ourselves. Since my passport was a fresh one, I had to get it attested. The agent did not offer any  help and when I came back to submit the form, the "incharge" told me that the signatures were not correct because the signatory was not a Government agent. This gave the agent a whiff of money. He made up a story that "my number was not being fetched" in the Passport system, hence we would have to go to the other passport office on Abbott Road. So the next day, we took the agent to the other passport office, he took Rs. 2,000 from us but said that the problem could not be solved. This time he said that we would have to take a trip to Islamabad which would cost us Rs. 10,000 to fix the issue. 

By this time, we had had enough and we told him to return the money we had given him so far. Not expecting this response from such naive customers, the agent balked and said he would try again. Next day, the form was submitted and I received the passport 15 days later. Hence, we lost Rs. 2,300 to the agent who only helped us deposit the passport fee and was about to scam us for Rs. 10,000. 

After this incident, I never used an agent for my passport renewal. I submitted the fee myself a day earlier, reached the office early morning and got done quickly. 

Unfortunately, many people and even friends of mine get scammed with the same "number not being fetched" line because they do not know better.

Number plates in Lahore

In late 2006, the Punjab Govt of Mr. Pervaiz Elahi and it's Excise and Taxation department introduced new number plates for motor vehicles. The rationale  behind this intervention was to put computer readable number plates on all vehicles in order to have better vigilance through CCTV cameras. The number plates are issued for four categories (see image below).

The system functioned smoothly before the 2011 debacle when the contractor (3M) providing these plates was "blacklisted", which put a halt on computerized number plates being issued to commuters. For the period between 2011 and 2013, the system remained suspended and Excise department was only too happy to provide the vehicle registration number so buyers of new vehicles could get a counterfeit number plate made from street-side vendors.

In 2014, another department of the Government decided that it was time to change number plates of Punjab. Various newspapers were fed stories of "special US-like" number plates to be rolled out. Fortunately, nothing materialized and the E&T department has stuck with its original design.

Why I'm writing about this today is because the E&T department now wants only standardized number plates in Punjab. Older and counterfeit number plates have no room in Punjab, according to the department. Ironically, the department itself led to a boom in the fake plate industry when it was unable to provide computerized number plates between 2011 and 2013.

There are two parts to this story: the sad one and the good one. The sad part is that while we never got a computerized number plate (during 2011 and 2013), we had already paid for it when getting the registration number. The good part is that we can now get the authenticated plates from E&T dept (Farid Kot House), free of charge*. Why I put an asterisk next to free of charge is because while you don't pay for the plates in monetary terms, it was a hassle just to get hands on them.

When I entered the office to get these plates in 2016 (having paid for it in 2013), I was guided by an efficient yet geriatric receptionist towards the back office. Although there was a board listing which offices were found on what floor, it was impossible to make any sense of it. I wandered a bit before asking a person sitting outside an office (possibly a Naib Qasib), about where I should go for number plates. The person informed me that the same could be received from the upper floor. When I climbed the stairs, there was no guidance here as well so I had to ask another gentleman who asked me to move one floor higher. Having reached the top floor, I was thankful that I couldn't be asked to go higher, but the person dealing with number plates, after seeing my registration year asked me to go to the first floor.

After having no luck on the first floor, I approached the office of "director", who asked me to meet a Mr. Adeel Amjad on this very floor. After reaching Mr. Amjad's office, where he wasn't present, I was asked to meet Mr. Aslam Nadir. Mr. Nadir was busy dealing with number plates and was a bit agitated at Mr. Amjad's staff for having referred me towards him. In order to end the ordeal, I asked Mr. Nadir what my next steps should be? He asked me to see a Mr. Imran in the basement.

After consulting a few more Naib Qasids, I was able to locate Mr. Imran, sitting in a hidden office lined with number plates. Mr. Imran kept entering new number plates into his record register. After 5 minutes, he was able to find time to ask me my problem. I handed my registration to him, with which he disappeared into the backroom. During this time I kept thinking whether or not my number plates would be here, since there could be millions of other places where it could be. Interestingly, Mr. Imran returned with my set of plates and handed them to me. It was surprising that he found 3-year old plates in less than two minutes although the mess in the backroom made it seem impossible. So after 30 minutes of exercise ascending and descending stairs, I had what I came to get.

The E&T department needs to do the following:

• Make sure it is easier to get number plates. TCS delivery is available but the system doesnt seem to work
• Ensure that the crackdown continues. Even today we see outrageous number plate designs
• Address the basic issues - Tests for driver license & vehicle fitness
• Get rid of certain departments trying to get credit for E&T activities (explained later)

Certain interventions have been proposed by certain "units" in the Punjab Government in "collaboration with the E&T department" which can be at best described as frivolous. DVRS, VVTP culture and Excise 2.0 Vanity plates are two examples of the branding used. Although such interventions are not harmful per se, they serve more as initiatives to be reported in the press rather than initiatives that would lead to any real change. 

The same "units" claim to have changed the motor vehicle tax payment system. However, as I've described, the masses have to go through the same ordeal to get their number plates. The same applies for registering a new vehicle, transferring ownership, paying yearly token taxes.

Putting a sticker on the car doesn't mollify the pain suffered to get that sticker in the first place. Vanity plates may be ubiquitous in the US, but so are proper driver license and vehicle fitness tests, something the "units" and Punjab Govt have claimed to address but only in newspapers, not in reality.