Om Astha Rai

Saudi Arabia has assured Nepal that it would allow Nepali migrant workers carrying handwritten passports to enter the kingdom for sometime to come.

At a meeting with representatives of foreign employment agencies on Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Narayankaji Shrestha assured them that Saudi Arabia will restart issuing visas to Nepali workers with handwritten passports in a few days.

Som Lal Bataju, president of Nepal Association of Foreign Employment Agencies (NAFEA), quoted foreign minister Shrestha as saying, “We are expecting a positive decision from Saudi Arabia probably by Saturday.”

According to Uday Raj Pandey, Nepal´s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, who met senior officials at the Saudi Arabian ministry of foreign affairs over the issue on Wednesday, the kingdom has made it clear that it would allow the use of handwritten passports only for a certain period.

“The undertone of what Saudi Arabian officials have told us is almost clear. They will issue visas to Nepali workers who have already deposited visa fees,” says Pandey. “The kingdom may not issue visas to workers with new handwritten passports. Those workers who have not deposited visa fees will have to obtain Machine Readable Passports (MRPs) to work here.”

More than 7,000 handwritten passports of Nepali workers have already piled up in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Bangladesh for visa stampings ever since the kingdom banned manual passports. “An additional 3,000 handwritten passports have piled up in Nepal waiting for the lifting of the ban,” says Bataju, adding, “Some 50 manpower entrepreneurs are in Bangladesh for the last few weeks expecting a positive decision from Saudi Arabia to this effect.”

Saudi Arabia, one of the major overseas job destinations for Nepali laborers, had stopped accepting handwritten passports a month ago without prior notice following a series of disclosures about tampered manual passports. A majority of Nepali workers still carry conventional handwritten passports on the pretext of difficulties in obtaining MRPs.

Nepali foreign employment agencies have been asking the government to lobby for the lifting of the ban by Saudi Arabia on handwritten passports on the ground that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has allowed Nepal to use manual passports till 2015. Nepal has got an excuse for using manual passports for a few more years as it failed to meet the deadline for introducing MRP.

“It will be a great relief for us if those workers who have already deposited visa fees, $ 36 each, will get to go to Saudi Arabia,” says Bataju.

Published on: 1 December 2011 | Republica