If everything goes as planned and the Ministry of Finance releases the required budget on time, Nepal will be able to finally introduce MRPs in a maximum of 91 days from Tuesday. [break]
Chief of Protocol Mukti Nath Bhatta, who headed the evaluation committee, said that the French company was selected because it has offered to supply the MRPs at US$ 3.59 per booklet.
The price also covers a personalization system to be set up at the ministry. The second lowest offer was US$5.99 per booklet from an Indonesian government-owned company.
Bhatta, addressing a press conference organized to announce the winner of the MRP bidding Tuesday, said the ministry has invited Oberthur Technologies to sign an agreement within seven days to supply the MRPs.
As per the tender documents, the French firm is required to supply a first lot of MRPs - 400,000 copies - within 70 days of singing the agreement. Oberthur will supply machine readable passports till November 24, 2015. After that e-passports will be introduced.
Siddhartha Pandey, the local representative of the firm, said on Tuesday evening that Oberthur was yet to be formally informed of the MoFA decision, adding that the security printer will sign the agreement as soon as possible once it gets an official invitation.
This is the third attempt of the ministry to procure MRPs from an international firm.
Nepal is to introduce MRPs as per its commitment to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). As per the initial ICAO deadline, Nepal should have introduced MRPs by April 1.
As MoFA´s first effort to procure the passports failed, the UN agency had extended the deadline till August 1 upon a request from Nepal. As the second bid also failed, Nepal has already requested ICAO to extend the deadline again, till December 31.
Passport charge to remain same
Though the government is going to procure machine-readbale passport at US$ 3.59 per booklet, the government has no plan to increase the price of the passport.
The price of MRP will not be increased, said Bhatta when asked whether the MRPs will be expensive.
Non-machine readable passports or traditional ones were bought for 82 cents per piece and the government charges Rs 5,000 per booklet to the citizens.
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