ISLAMABAD - Thousands of people wishing to travel abroad and facing difficulties in getting their passports will feel a sigh of relief as Directorate General of Immigration & Passports on Monday claimed to have cleared all backlog of passports pending with the department. Earlier, people were facing difficulties in getting their passports issued due to slow processing by the directorate as around 0.25 millions of backlog of unprocessed passports had accumulated with it some months ago. Interior Minister Rehman Malik had showed its resentment over the performance of Directorate General office for several times. Once the Minister had said that if the Directorate failed to clear the backlog, the project of processing and printing of passports would be handed over to National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA). The DG Passport Office Monday officially said that it had cleared the backlog of passports till May 14 as directed by the Interior Minister and now normal delivery of passports would be observed in the next days. The clearance of backlog is also very significant in view of the incoming Haj season when the number of applicants increases to get passports and Directorate General of Passport has to bear a lot of work pressure. Last year, many complaints were reported in the media about the delay of issuance of passports for those people aspiring to proceed for the performance of Haj. The DG?office earlier held responsible old faulty printing machines due to which backlog of more than four months had accumulated.