On Thursday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) wrote to its mission in Canada, where ICAO is headquartered, to file a request with the UN agency to extend the deadline for a second time, to December 31, 2010, said Madan Kumar Bhattarai, secretary at MoFA. [break]
Earlier, Nepal missed the April 1 deadline set by ICAO, despite efforts to introduce MRP first through international bidding and then through a deal with India. The international bidding was cancelled in mid-December last year, citing technical reasons, while the deal with India was revoked by the cabinet amidst political controversy.
Following the two unsuccessful efforts, fresh bidding has already been called and the deadline for filing bid applications expires on July 1. As of Thursday, 16 international security firms, including ones from India and China, have picked up bid documents at the ministry. If this bidding goes successfully, machine readable passports will be available by November 1.
In its request, Nepal has also asked ICAO to accept traditional Nepali passports that are issued after August 1. Earlier, Nepal had requested ICAO to acknowledge traditional passport issued after April 1 and the UN agency had accepted the request. Nepal has been issuing non-MRPs since April 1. Had the first deadline been met, the traditional passports issued after April 1 would have become invalid for international travel.
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