Do not compromise MRP quality: India

KATHMANDU, July 17: Amidst allegations that Oberthur Technologies, the french company that won the contract to supply machine readable passports (MRPs) to Nepal, has offered “sub-standard” personalization printers, India has officially lodged its concern with Nepal about the quality of passports that the French firm would supply.

Knowledgeable government sources said the Indian Embassy sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) on July 12, expressing India´s concern about media reports that “security features in MRPs have been diluted” while awarding the tender to the French security printers. [break]

“India requests the esteemed ministry that there is no dilution in the security features of the passports to be issued by the government of Nepal and that Nepalese passports confirm to the security features as agreed upon by both the sides in the past,” reads a part of the letter leaked to myrepublica.com.

The French firm has proposed to personalize passports using printers of PARK and OPC Co Ltd, South Korea. But rival bidders -- Perum Peruri (Indonesia) and De La Rue (UK) -- have officially accused that the printers of PARK and OPC do not fully comply with the specifications laid out in the tender document.

They have also charged the French company of producing a fake user certificate about the use of PARK and OPC printers in Korea.

French Embassy in Kathmandu, however, has come forward to defend Oberthur. It has written a letter to the ministry saying that the user certificates submitted by the French firm were genuine.

India writes concerns to MoFA

French govt defends Oberthur

According to the letter sent by India to MoFA, India is concerned about the quality of MRPs in light of “unusually” high incidents of loss of passports in Nepal and frequent misuse of Nepali passports by non-Nepali citizens.

India, in the letter, has tried to justify its concern over standard of Nepali passports. It has said that Nepali citizens have been given many privileges in India on the basis of Nepali passports and “dilution of standard of the passports is therefore a matter of concern”.

This is the second letter written by India to Nepal on MRP issue so far. In a letter dated December 4, 2009, Indian Ambassador had written a confidential letter to MoFA, expressing Indian interest in supplying the smart passports.

Accordingly, the government had even signed a deal on procuring passports from the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited. But the government was forced to cancel the deal amidst political controversy and leakage of the letter.

kiran@myrepublica.com