I would like to draw attention of the authorities at the Interior Ministry towards the closure of computerized passport office in Kanju, Swat. The, then, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao had ordered opening up of a computerized passport office in Chitral and Gilgit to issue machine-readable passports in 2007. Both offices were opened in November 2007. In February 2008, when Mr. Sherpao left office, the Chitral office was not yet functional despite spending of a huge amount of money on it. Reason? It cannot start functioning until the 'boss' formally inaugurates it and nobody knows who is the boss in Islamabad. Due to this one little glitch, hundreds of thousands of applicants for computerized passport are facing severe hardship. It is requested that passport office Chitral may be made operational without formal inauguration because 'formal inauguration' was not the purpose of setting up this office. -BASHIR HUSSAIN AZAD, Chitral, via e-mail, September 13.