Raza Naqvi Attock
Overseas Pakistanis residing in Calgary, Canada were facing severe hardships in obtaining various services from Consulate General of Pakistan in Vancouver and demanding setting up of a Council General Office in Calgary.
While talking to newsman, several Pakistanis said that thousands of Pakistanis living in Calgary and adjoining areas in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Yukon Territories were compelled to travel several hundred miles to Vancouver for getting various services specially to obtain machine readable passports (MRP) or to get other minor facilities like name changes etc. from Consulate General in Vancouver.
One resident Syed Hasan Raza Naqvi, who was residing in Calgary for almost 8 years also contacted Pakistan Canada Association President in Calgary and PCA president also confirmed that numerous efforts were made to bring the services to Calgary with official and they were all turned down by Government of Pakistan.
In addition Syed spoke with Consul General of Vancouver and he also acknowledge the hardships that overseas Pakistanis need to face for getting these services from surrounding areas and confirmed that multiple requests were submitted to Foreign Ministry and DG Immigration Passport.
They said that even submitting complaints on PM Citizen Portal did not solve their problems which resulted bearing them financial as well as time losses.
In some cases, effected person may have to apply time off from their jobs while traveling to Vancouver.
The residents demanded that Prime Minister Imran Khan and Mr. Zulfi Bukhari (Special Assistant to PM for overseas Pakistani) should personally intervene to solve these problems faced by thousands of Pakistanis and should established Counsel General at Calgary or at least establish an office to solve problems faced by aggrieved Pakistanis at local level.
