20 passport offices to operate every day to ease congestion

SHAH ALAM - A total of 20 Passport Issuing Offices apart from the Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) will be operating seven days a week starting Friday in an effort to overcome congestion at Immigration Department counters.

Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said other measures implemented was the improvement of the online appointment system which will provide a date and time as well as queue number.

Besides that, he said there will be additional passport printing machine at offices which were crowded and with a high rate of visitors.

"Other than that, the passport office at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) will also be operating as a passport issuing office for emergency cases besides processing normal applications," he said in a Facebook post, yesterday.

Commenting on the issue of the long queue of foreign visitors at KLIA, Saifuddin said among the immediate measures that will be taken included a broad study of the autogate system to visitors from 10 low risk countries.

"The formation of two Quick response team (QRT) will start operating on Feb 1 to assist officers at the counter during peak hours," he added.