Dominance of brokers and public suffering have been prevalent at Bagerhat regional passport office for long as its some corrupt officials ply a pivotal role behind the irregularities.
Consequently, the malpractices turn as usual matter and the passport seekers have been forced to bear the excess cost, thanks to the corrupt officials.
Many affected passport seekers alleged that the officials have developed an illegal cartel for the misdeed and its Deputy Assistant Director Jakir Hossain is controlling the network.
While visiting the correspondent received the aforesaid complaints from some affected people.
Sources said the government set up the passport office as part of launching 33 regional offices across the country to lessen the suffering of abroad goers in getting passport timely. General passport seekers, who evade brokers, face repeated hurdles in every steps of the process, even the emergency passport seekers used to count additional days than usual to get their passport.
Surprisingly, those who make application through brokers get their passport timely. The government fixed charges of Tk3,450 and Tk6,900 for general and emergency passports respectively.
The general passport seekers have to bear an excess amount of Tk1,500-3,500 there while the figure of the emergency passport seekers is Tk3,000-4,000.
The passport office often receive 60 applications daily and of them, around 50 applications, identified as channel file, were made through brokers.
In course of time, the transaction of bribe there has reached about Tk10 lakh monthly.
Local sources said the syndicate include Senior Office Assistant Rabiul Islam, Data Entry Operator Kabir Hossain, Project Manager Rezaul Hoque, Computer Operators Panna and Tareque, and lower grade officials Jalal Ahmed and Mostafiz.
Of them, Kabir used to introduce himself close aide of the deputy assistant director to the passport seekers and engaged in taking bribe desperately.
Denying all raised allegations Bagerhat Deputy Assistant Director Jakir Hossain said: “There is no irregularities inside the passport office and I am not aware of the brokers outside the premise.”