T

he Immigration Directorate General is planning to extend the validity of passports from five years to 10 years to cope with the increasing demand for passports in the country.

With only 125 immigration offices and 10 passport service points across the country, the directorate received 3.093 million passport applications in 2017, an increase from 3.032 million in 2016 and 2.878 million in 2015.

The directorate’s head of general public relations, Agung Sampurno, conceded that it was overwhelmed with the increasing demand for passports, both new applications and renewals.

“With limited resources, we cannot keep up with the demand. The number of offices, officers and equipment we have remain the same, but the demand for passports keeps increasing; it’s more than we can handle,” Agung told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

In 2017, nearly 400,000 passport applications could not be processed, he added.

The directorate hopes that extending a passport’s validity to 10 years will help reduce the number of applications it receives, particularly for renewals, and ultimately address the backlog.

“It will reduce [the number of applications] because passport holders will only come to the office every 10 years,” Agus said.

Although the results of the plan remain to be seen, it has been welcomed by many, especially those who must frequently travel abroad.

“This is good news for me,” Berthold Sinaulan, 58, a Jakarta-based writer and scoutmaster, said recently.

Berthold said he traveled abroad on business trips at least six times a year. Although he enjoys the experience, the mandatory task of renewing his passport every five years gives him a headache, he added.

“I feel that the passport system suffered a setback, not an improvement,” he said.

Berthold recalled that in 2013, he was surprised by the directorate’s move to set up an online passport application service that which was “almost paperless”.

The system allowed him to upload every document needed to renew his passport from his computer at home.

The only time he needed to go to the immigration office was to pick up his new passport five days after submitting the request.

It then took only an hour for him to receive the new passport.

However, it all changed when he needed to renew it once again in January.

Berthold said he did not receive a waiting number until two months later. Once he did get the number, he waited for more than six hours at an immigration office to get his new passport.

The immigration office had discontinued the online passport application service in 2016 due to financial issues.

“That [system] was funded by non-tax state revenue, some of which came from foreign visa revenues. The new regulation on visa exemption for 169 countries affected the system’s sustainability,” Agung said, adding that the policy led to some Rp 1.3 trillion (US$92.6 million) in potential losses in non-tax revenue.

However, he hoped the system could resume in 2019.

Indonesia’s growing demand for passports reflects the trend of an expanding middle class with a rising purchasing power.

Additionally, both local and foreign airlines increasingly offer special prices for flights from Indonesia to popular destinations abroad to lure more customers.

More than 9.1 million Indonesians traveled abroad in 2017, a significant increase from 8.1 million in the previous year.

A growing number of young travelers aged between 15 and 35 backpack around the world on the back of increasing traveling community groups, which make the experience more enjoyable and affordable for them.