“We are going to write to the ICAO next week to extend the deadline but are yet to decide how long the deadline should be extended,” a Foreign Ministry official told myrepublica.com. [break]
Nepal was initially supposed to introduce the machine readable passports (MRPs) by April 1 but the deadline was missed. MoFA´s bid to select an international security printer failed in last December as an international bid was canceled citing technical reasons.
Nepal tried to procure the passports from India but took a turnaround due to Maoist protests and direction from the Public Accounts Committee in April.
As the April-1 deadline was missed, Nepal had requested the ICAO to extend the deadline till August 1.
At present, the MoFA has called an international bid to select a supplier of machine readable passports and the deadline to submit bid forms runs till June 30.
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