BANGKOK, 9 February 2014 The Department of Consular Affairs will open its passport section nationwide on Monday after the service has been halted for months due to computer server shutdown.
According to Director-General Thongchai Chasawat, the online passport issuing service will resume in offices nationwide on Monday 10. The service has been halted for several weeks after the anti-government movement seized the nearby Government Complex and forced the Department to shutdown its main office on Chaeng Wattana road in Bangkok.
After a round of negotiations, the protest leader allowed the Department to send in a number of technicians to restart the main computer server, said Thongchai, explaining that the reopening of online service will enable the department to issue 7,000 passports daily, which is sufficient to meet the demand of 6,500 a day.
The department has in the past several weeks opened temporary or mobile passport issuing offices in Bangkok and several other provinces to serve the Thais’ growing need for passports. However, those offices are capable of issuing only 200 passports a day, triggering numerous complaints from those who had to queue up for so long applying for passports.
