Fight over India bid drives Nepal to passport disaster

April 1 bodes to be no laughing matter for Nepal with the fledgling republic heading for a passport disaster as the ruling parties continue to bicker over a bid by an Indian company to print new passports.
As per the norms of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Nepal needs to switch over to the more progressive machine-readable passports by April 1.
If the government fails to make the leap, it will not be able to issue new passports from April 2 unless ICAO agrees to extend the deadline.
With less than a fortnight left for the deadline, the coalition government has yet not decided which printing company should get the job.
The indecision began after the government called for a global tender and four companies were shortlisted. They include firms from France, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.
However, Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala, who is also the deputy prime minister, is asking the government to award the contract to the state-owned Security Printing and Minting Corp of India.
Though the cabinet has been mulling over the proposal, it was unable to endorse the decision immediately due to pressure by a group of MPs.
An Indian team was supposed to visit Nepal to work out the details of the passport project but the visit was cancelled after the Nepal government failed to reach an agreement.
The cabinet is headed for a meeting Friday when the matter will be taken up once again.
19/03/10 IANS/Sify.com

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Categories: Foreign Mar 2010