The federal government is unlikely to include the religion column in the newly introduced machine readable passports (MRPs), despite criticism from religious parties, due to technical constraints and international commitments, it is learnt.
Informed sources told Dawn on Tuesday that an understanding to this effect had already been reached among concerned ministries and would be formally approved by the federal cabinet which meets here on Wednesday with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in the chair.
The sources said the interior ministry had submitted a summary to the cabinet on the subject with input from other relevant ministries, including foreign affairs and religious affairs, seeking continuation of existing machine readable passports without including the column of religion.
The government has been repeatedly rejecting demands from the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal for the re-introduction of religion column in the passports before Pakistan Muslim League president Shujaat Hussain said after a meeting with party leaders that the column would be restored.
The interior ministry summary seen by Dawn says that it is a requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) that the MRPs should have only six columns as a matter of international uniformity and does not allow inclusion of religion column.
The summary also says that the computer software for the MRPs has been designed on the international pattern and involves only six columns. A different software is not immediately available in the market to replace it.
It says that if the government desires to include religion column in the passports, it will have to get a new software designed for this purpose which will require a lot of time and additional expenditure.
The summary says that the government has already spent an amount of Rs50 million in putting in place the existing system for the machine readable passports and printing of 300,000 booklets of new MRPs. The passport authorities have already issued 70,000 MRPs to the general public.
Changing the software will not only mean wastage of public money which has already been spent but will also make it difficult to retrieve 70,000 new passports already issued.
It would also be very difficult to inform the world capitals about Pakistan's three types of passports - old manual which contained the religion column, MRPs without the religion column, and MRPs with religion column - and result in unnecessary confusion and problems for the citizens.
The introduction of new passports with religion column would take at least one year even if a special software is designed on an urgent basis, the summary explained. The summary says that the passport office also did not have the authority to confirm the religion of all the Pakistani citizens which are accepted solely on the basis of written declaration included in the passport form.
Since the passport forms are directly linked with the software of machine readable passports, the declaration about the religion is automatically available to the immigration authorities. On the basis of these ground realities, the ministry of interior has asked the government to continue with existing MRPs without including the religion column.