Situation tough for both service seekers, officials in passport office

The Department of Immigration and Passports (DIP) is struggling to deal with ever-growing number of service recipients amid its limited resources, officials said.
The situation is causing multi-pronged strains, mainly in the form of increase in workload of the officials concerned.
Besides, the people who come to renew their passports or take new ones are not getting proper services from the state agency, they also said.
The manpower and other logistics of DIP remained almost the same for nearly two decades, although the number of service recipients keeps increasing at a rate of around 5.0 per cent per year.
As a result, the government agency personnel are battling hard to cope with the growing workload, they added.
During recent visits (on February 24-26) to the divisional passport and visa office at Agargaon in the capital, the FE correspondent found the office compound and its adjacent areas packed with service seekers.
Talking to the FE, Sirajul Islam, who came to the office to make passport for his family members, came down heavily on the passport officials and the authority concerned.
"I came here to make passports of my wife and son. I'm moving from one room to another, from one floor to another, with my family to get services. But I do not find any place to sit here, which is the minimum requirement."
He also criticised the officers for not giving enough attention to the service seekers.
"It seems that we've committed crimes by coming here," he added.
Touhidul Alam, a data entry operator of enrolment booth, was found busy in verifying identities of people.
"I'm dealing with too many people. I cannot give too much time to people even if I want to. It is 2:30 pm, but I could not manage time to have my lunch. Nobody talks about us and sees how much workload we're taking," he added.
When contacted, director of divisional passport and visa office Abdullah Al Mamun said they have a workforce of only 46 people to handle around 10,000 people a day.
"Is it logical? We can serve maximum 500-600 people with the existing manpower. People cannot imagine how tough our work (of service delivery) has become now."
Talking about providing sitting arrangements to the service seekers, he said the office does not have enough space to do so.
"It is only possible, if we can relocate either this office or the headquarters to somewhere else," he added.
DIP director (admin and finance) Md Shihab Uddin Khan said many of the posts in the divisional office have been vacant for years, making it difficult for them to manage the increased workload.
Citing statistics, he said there were 4.0 million passport holders in the country until 1980. "Now we annually issue around 4.0 million passports, but our manpower remains almost the same as it was in the 80's."
Mr Khan said they have raised the issue of increasing manpower according to requirement on several occasions in the past, but have not got any (concrete) response yet.
He said they have received information regarding opening of various overseas employment markets for Bangladeshi workers. "If it happens so, just think how much pressure we'll have to take."
Seeking anonymity, another official said they are approaching the ministries concerned for allotting them enough space to help relocation of the headquarters.
Both the divisional office and the headquarters are located on 10 kathas of land, whereas minimum one acre of land is required to this effect.
Besides, people from different security agencies are being deployed to run the department, which is also causing problems.
"It needs time to understand the services here. Once they (the deployed people) start understanding the system, they are replaced by others. So, no one is getting enough time to own the department," he added.
The official, however, was hopeful of getting another 2,000 people in its existing manpower within this year.

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