In a proposal sent to the ministry recently to ease issuance of passports, the DPI said it would rather ask people seeking passports to submit photocopies of birth certificate, character certificate and nationality certificate from local government bodies attested by first class government officers or principals of colleges or headmasters of local schools.

The DPI would then check the names of applicants for passports with government-prepared 'black list' and 'suspect list' and send the names of applicants on such lists for police clearance, DPI sources said.

Citing statistics of delay in passport issuance, they said that in March this year, they examined 9,350 passport applications in very urgent category and issued 1,437 passports within three days, 2,109 within seven days, 2,822 within one month and the rest after one month. All those were supposed to be issued within seven days.

For applicants in the urgent and ordinary categories, the situation is even worse.

If police verification system is abolished, very urgent category passports can be issued within four to five days, urgent category within 15 to 16 days and ordinary category within 25 to 26 days, the DPI proposal said.

Since there is no time limit for police verification report, which is in the jurisdiction of police authorities, there is no guarantee that passports of any categories would be issued timely, DPI sources pointed out.

People now have to pay Tk 5,000 for getting passports in 'very urgent' category that are supposed to be issued within seven days, Tk 3,000 for 'urgent' category to be issued within 21 days and Tk 2,000 for ordinary category to be issued within 30 days.

In most of the cases, people express their frustration that they do not get passports timely as DPI does not get police verification report in due time.

In November 2005, the government imposed a restriction that no passport would be issued without police verification report. Sources said this was done due to security reasons.

Earlier, rules provided that in 'very urgent' cases, passport would be issued within three days and then police verification would be completed. If police verification reports were not submitted within one month, passports would be issued without that.

Meanwhile, passport offices are crowded by applicants regularly. "But we, not police, have to face people agitated over not getting their jobs done", a DPI official at Dhaka office said. "Why should we be accountable for jobs which are not in our hands?" he asked angrily.

Aminul Islam of Gazipur said he was supposed to get his passport by April 15 but he got it on May 9.

In reply to a question, a high official of DPI said, "I if the headmaster of a local school falsely attests important papers, then why would it be unusual for police?"

When contacted, Special Branch (SB) of Police, which deals with police verification report, said each passport document from the DPI contains a seal regarding its category and police treat it accordingly.

A senior SB official said police verify present and permanent addresses of an applicant for passport and issue report after their regular duties of law enforcement and ensuring security.

He denied allegations of dilly-dallying on submitting police verification report.

He however admitted there might be delay in some cases since it is difficult for police to verify addresses in many remote areas due to communication problems.

"We have now introduced computerised system in our Dhaka office. Some one coming to our office can see at what stage his/ her (police verification) report is."

Police officials rather blamed DPI for delay in passport issuance, saying it is suffering from manpower shortage.

Director General of DPI Abdur Rob Hawlader, when contacted, said they are striving to make the whole process easier for people. "At the same time, we have to ensure that no black-listed or suspicious people can get passport", he added.