The government has sent separate teams to Malaysia and Saudi Arabia to intensify efforts to replace handwritten passports with machine readable passports for thousands of Nepalis working in these countries.

The Department of Passport sent teams to these major job destination countries at a time when the Parliament’s International Relations and Labour Committee has directed the concerned agencies to do the needful for timely replacement of handwritten passports.

A team led by DoP’s Section Officer Gayetri Paudyal has been sent to Malaysia while another team led by Under Secretary Dhurba Nepal has been sent to Saudi Arabia. Both the teams are expected to start their work from Monday.

Nepal has to replace all handwritten passports with the MRPs by November 24 as per the deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. If the deadline is missed, the Nepali nationals’ international travel would be affected.

Thousands of Nepalis living in major job destination countries like Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are still carrying handwritten passports.

DoP Director General Lok Bahadur Thapa said these teams would visit places in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia where concentration of Nepalis is high and inform and encourage them to replace their passports with MRPs if they are still holding the old ones.

They will also set up field offices and encourage people to fill MRP forms and process them, Thapa added.

Earlier, DoP had sent a similar team to another major job destination country — Qatar. The team spent one month there informing and encouraging Nepalis living there about the urgency to replace their passports. They also helped facilitate the Nepalis to fill MRP forms.

Nepal’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Udaya Raj Pandey told The Himalayan Times over phone from Riyadh that some 85 thousands Nepalis living in Saudi Arabia have so far replaced their handwritten passport with MRPs since the adoption of MRP in December 2010.

He, however, said over 35,000 Nepalis were still carrying handwritten passports and needed to replace them.

Pandey pointed out that replacing passports of those who have been working as domestic help in Saudi Arabia would be difficult unless they themselves approached the Nepali embassy for the same. “We have no idea how many such workers are here in Saudi Arabia,” Pandey said.

“Their passports are kept by the employers. They are not in our contact. Unless they themselves contact us, we cannot inform them about replacing their passports with MRPs,” he added.

Published on: 5 April 2015 | The Himalayan Times