Weena Pun

Sukumaya Thokar Tamang could have paid Rs 5,000 and obtained a passport from the District Administration Office in Bara, her home district. But she chose to travel from Nijgadh to Kathmandu and pay double the amount because the wait would be much shorter—from six weeks to one.

Tamang, however, feels this sense of urgency not because she is flying abroad in the next few weeks, but because she wants to. At 40, she is eager to migrate to Kuwait for work. And the sooner she gets the passport, the sooner she can start the process. Most foreign employment agencies demand her passport before they find her a job.

“That is why six weeks is too long. I could get a job in that period and leave right away,” says Tamang. “Though they only say six weeks, it usually takes more than that.”

Kalyan Singh Sahu from Hikila in Darchula district has a similar story to tell. He currently works in India, but wants to travel to another country. If he can get a passport in a week, he can leave it with a foreign employment agency here in the Capital and have it look for a job abroad right away.

“In the meantime, I can return to work in India,” he says.Every day, there are hundreds of people like Tamang and Sahu, who line up at the Department of Passport in Kathmandu, either to submit papers or to pick up the documents.

“Currently, around 700 submit applications for passport s every day and 700 pick them up,” says a police constable on duty, who has been stationed at the Department of Passport for the last four-and-a-half years. His job is to keep the lines in order and to help with inquiries.

Many applicants are like Tamang and Sahu, who travel to the Valley from remote areas and who apply for passport s in hopes of getting a job abroad.

That is why if the government introduces a “super-fast service” through which one can obtain a passport in 48 hours for Rs 15,000, it is people like Tamang and Sahu who will find it cost-effective to pay the additional Rs 5,000.

“Rs 15,000 for two days seems cheaper than 10,000 for a week because we can return to our districts earlier, saving us money we would have otherwise spent on food and lodging in Kathmandu,” says Sahu.

The Department of Passport, however, has no statistics on what kind of people use the current fast service and what kind of people might be affected by the proposed “super-fast service”. 

“The target audience of the super-fast service must be businessmen and employees at international and national non-government organisations,” says Ramesh Prasad Khanal, Director General at the Department of Passport, unsure of the intended beneficiaries.

“But the plain truth is: those who can pay will pay. Those who can’t won’t even apply for a passport ,” he says.

This logic is highly faulty, says Bharat Bahadur Thapa, Secretary General at Transparency International (TI)-Nepal. “It is the government’s responsibility to make it easier for every citizen to get a passport , regardless of their economic status. If the government wants the rich to pay more, it should reform the progressive tax rate, not take advantage of the difficult situation the common people are in.”

In a letter sent a week ago to the Chief Secretary, TI-Nepal berated the government’s proposed move, accusing it of fleecing the would-be labour migrants while relying on remittance sent by them as a major source of national income.

Published on: 22 May 2013 | The Kathmandu Post