I REFER to Ms Wong Shuk-wah's letter headlined, ''Department needs more lines (South China Morning Post November 17).
The Immigration Department's Information Office offers a telephone inquiry service to the public on its hotline 824 6111. This hotline is operating under the Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) which came into operation on October 4, this year. The IVRS is connected with 20 citinet lines. Utilising a touch-tone telephone set as a terminal, a caller can have access to a pre-recorded message of his choice through depressing digits as prompted by the IVRS which offers a round-the-clock service to the public.
The response from the public to the IVRS is very favourable and an average of about 5,000 calls are received daily. However, despite our efforts on promoting the use of the system outside office hours, it would appear the great majority of the calls continue to come during the busy hours from 9am to 5pm, on weekdays. This has exerted tremendous pressure on the existing 20 lines.
To help solve the overloading problem during office hours, we are seeking to expand the system by installing more telephone lines to cope with the demand. We would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the public to make full use of the round-the-clock service of the JVRS and phone in after the busy hours.
On Ms Wong's complaint that the advertisements on the BN(O) Phased Registration Programme do not give sufficient information as to where applicants should renew their passports, I would like to point out that due to constraints in the advertisements suchas limited space in the posters and short air time in the public announcements, it is not possible to include the detailed addresses of all immigration offices. However, we have highlighted our hotlines - 824 1717 (Chinese) and 824 1177 (English), through which members of the public can obtain the required information. Such information is also contained in the guidance notes which are given out together with passport application forms.
S. K. LEUNG for Director of Immigration
