A senior official at the Home Ministry said they wrote to MoFA a few days ago as MoFA has been dilly-dallying in taking the manual passport booklets back, citing space constraints at the ministry. “We have written to the foreign ministry seeking clear directives whether to destroy them or send them back,” said an official, asking not to be named. [break]
Home Ministry officials said they have some 250,000 manual passports at the stores of the ministry and at the State Hall at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. Likewise, some 45,000 passports are at the disposal of various district administration offices (DAO) across the country. “The foreign ministry had promised us they would take back all the remaining passport booklets,” said the officials. “But they have not done so, citing space constraints at the ministry.”
Officials say the passport booklets, especially those still at the DAOs, are extremely likely to be misused by fraudsters who could issue them with back-dating.
The DAOs, which are under the Home Ministry, stopped issuing the passports after April 1, 2010--the deadline given by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for Machine Readable Passports (MRPs). MoFA then started issuing passports from its own offices at Narayanhiti.
MoFA also has some 117,000 manual passport booklets still at its disposal. These are to be destroyed as they can no longer be issued.
MoFA officials said they have already asked the Home Ministry to keep records of the remaining manual passports and store them safely. “The ministry has not yet received any formal letter from the Home Ministry,” said spokesperson at MoFA Durga Prasad Bhattarai. “The ministry will soon take a necessary decision in coordination with the Home Ministry.”
MoFA will have at its disposal over 400,000 manual passport booklets. “We will discuss whether to destroy them or hold on to them as they can be used for a few more months in case of some exceptional emergency,” Bhattarai further said.
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