“We are issuing non-machine readable passports only on Sunday and will not accept applications for such passports from the date,” said an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA).[break]
It means the ministry will not be issuing any passport from next week as the MoFA plans to make necessary preparations, including processing MRP applications, during the week to meet the December 26 deadline. The ministry will start collecting MRP application from Sunday onward. One will get MRP in six weeks.
MoFA officials said though the traditional passports will be available to the needy till December 26, such passports will have a limited validity.
MoFA officials to work in two shifts
The ministry is planning to make the officials in the passport section work two shifts -- morning and evening. The first shift will span from 8 am to 2 pm while the second will run from 2 pm till 8 pm.
Officials at the passport section have been working from 8 am till late evening and even during public holidays due to lack of human resources and large number of passport applications. Though passports used to be issued from all district administration offices in respective districts prior to April 1, only the ministry and Nepali missions have been given the authority since to satisfy the condition of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a UN agency.
“We are expecting twenty new non-gazetted first class officers to join the ministry by the first week of January,” the officials said.
Over 100,000 passports to go to waste
As the ministry is no longer issuing the old hand-written passports from Monday onward, an estimated 115,000 passports will go to waste. The ministry is yet to get back passports from the Home Ministry that had been sent to district administration offices earlier.
Officials said they plan to keep the passports, currently in possession of the ministry, so as to use them during emergency. But the passports in possession of the Home Ministry will be destroyed.
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