Nepali diplomatic
missions abroad have asked Nepali citizens to apply for machine readable
passports as soon as possible as the current handwritten passports would not be
valid after November 24, 2015.
Nepali
missions in France and Qatar organising programmes asked all the Nepalis to
replace their handwritten passports with machine readable passports soon to avoid
the last embarrassment.
Of the total
3.5 million migrant Nepali workers, some 2.5 million are yet to replace their
passports to machine readable ones, though only one Department of Passport is authorised to issue machine
readable passports. Since only 20 months has remained to the deadline of the
handwritten passports, the department would be unable to issue passport on
time, if it is delayed to apply.
The
government started distributing machine readable passports from December 26,
2010 replacing the handwritten ones, due to international pressure.
International
Civil Aviation Oraganisation (ICAO) had asked all the countries to replace their
ordinary handwritten passports into machine readable ones by November 24, 2015
as the ordinary passports would not be recognised on international flights.
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