4.4 million passports issued in 40 months
KATHMANDU, April 18: The Department of Passports (DoP) has stated that it issues more than 3,600 electronic passports (e-passports) daily.
Director General of the DoP Tirtha Raj Aryal said the department issued a total of 4,423,992 e-passports over a 40-month period, from Mangsir (mid-November to mid-December) 2021 to mid-March 2025.
During this time, the DoP averaged over 110,599 e-passports per month, which translates to more than 3,686 e-passports per day.
State incurs loss of over Rs 2 billion in passport procurement...
The DoP, District Administration Offices, and Nepali missions abroad issued these passports.
Director General Aryal said, "We now have between 700,000 to 750,000 blank e-passports in stock."
The DoP started issuing e-passports in Mangsir 2021. Before that, it issued Machine-Readable Passports (MRPs).
According to the DoP's data, the DoP has issued an average of more than 1.327 million e-passports annually over the past three years and four months.
Out of the 5.1 million e-passports it procured at different times, the department has issued 4.424 million.
"We expect to complete the procurement process for new passports within our planned timeline," Director General Aryal said.
In the fiscal year 2023/24, the DoP issued 1.473 million e-passports. In the previous fiscal year 2022/23, it issued 1.471 million e-passports.
The DoP reports that Nepal has issued more than 11.4 million passports over the past 14 and a half years, from the fiscal year 2007/08 to mid-March, 2025.
Nepal began issuing these passports after discontinuing handwritten passports and switching to Machine-Readable Passports (MRPs). This total also includes e-passports.
The DoP started issuing MRPs on November 26, 2010, after stopping the issuance of handwritten passports. Moreover, the DoP began issuing e-passports on November 17, 2021, after upgrading from MRPs.
