ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Monday visited the Directorate General of Immigration and Passports, where he formally inaugurated ‘Shikra’, a state-of-the-art monitoring system designed to track passport applications, printing processes and departmental performance in real time.
As part of the upgradation, a 24/7 monitoring room and a call centre have been made operational at the DG Immigration and Passports. On the directives of the interior minister, the system for issuing Emergency Travel Documents has also been fully digitised.
Officials gave a detailed briefing to the minister on the Secure Hybrid Intelligence for Knowledge-Based Response Analytics (Shikra) system and its operational features.
Naqvi praised the performance of the DG Immigration and Passports and his team for introducing a modern, technology-driven monitoring framework. He said Pakistan’s passport system had now been aligned with those of leading countries around the world.
“With this new system, real-time monitoring of passport applications and deliveries, both within Pakistan and abroad, will be possible,” he said, adding that every stage from application submission to final delivery would be closely supervised.
The interior minister said the government’s objective was to provide citizens with fast, secure and globally standardised services. He added that the upgraded monitoring framework would significantly enhance the efficiency of the department.
Naqvi also highlighted improvements in passport security features, stating that they had been upgraded in line with ICAO international standards. He noted that the installation of new automatic German printing machines had increased production capacity, eliminated human intervention in the printing process and improved overall reliability.
During the visit, the minister toured the e-monitoring room, call centre, forensic laboratory and the modern passport production unit. Officials briefed him on the digital integrated dashboard, which enables daily operational monitoring and staff performance evaluation.
Under the new system, crowd levels at passport offices will be detected automatically, while the Network Management System will track application backlogs and machinery status in real time.
