The passport department is preparing to issue e-passports within the next three months. The design of the e-passport will be completed by the last week of this month. The department has made all the preparations. The department claims that e-Passport will be issued from the last week of August if the supply of machines is not delayed due to Covid.
What is an e-Passport?
More than 100 countries around the world have used e-Passport. Nepal’s handwritten passport was replaced by a machine-readable passport 11 years ago. At that time, even though the government could go for e-passport. MRP’s live enrollment has not been put to good use.
Mandatory live enrollment is required for this. It is one layer above MRP i.e. it contains chips. The chips contain all the details of the citizen. Details of eyes, fingerprints are included. That work was also in the MRP. It was in the barcode with chips in it. Even if you apply online, you have to put virtual or direct details in it. An official said it would be clear how safe it was based on its effectiveness.
According to the passport department, work is underway to finalize the e-passport design. After the design of the passport is ready, the machine will be made accordingly, said Rajendra Pandey, spokesperson of the department. “The company is working on the passport. We are in regular virtual discussions,” he said. “We will probably finalize all the designs of the passport by the end of this month.”
Pandey said that passports will be issued to the service recipients for three years immediately. He said that a new process of making this type of e-passport can be made after three years. Whether it is made by another company or by having a security press within Nepal, the work can be done in that new format. “The government can build its own press security or do other homework,” he said.
The French company Idemia Identity and Security won the contract worth 21.1 million. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has estimated that the number of tourists around the world will increase by 2030 and e-passports will be easier.
Two types of e-passport
Spokesperson Pandey said that there would be two types of e-passports. According to him, one type will be 34 pages as it is now and the other will be 66 pages. Those who travel less will get a thinner passport-like now and those who travel more will get a passport with more pages.
Now, those who have MRP do not have to create an e-passport immediately. As the page is expired and expired, another one is taken. As 650,000 passports are issued annually, the tender has been issued on the same basis to make passports accessible to 2 million service recipients for three years.
Apply online
The government has put forward the concept of e-passport to ensure safe distribution from one place as per the provisions of ICAO. With e-passport, you can easily enter from the e-gate of the airport. But not all airports have such gates. Tourists will be able to get entry from the airport with the data, face and eyes in the passport.
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‘GPRS is not set in the passport. The department does not regulate the right of citizens to move freely, ‘said Pandey.’ The small chips in the passport contain all the details of the citizen. ‘ Because of this, the passport should be kept very safe and secure.
Full details can be obtained as soon as the passport holder’s number is entered. He said that e-passport cannot be misused. He is confident that e-passports will discourage such activities as one person’s passport has been used by other people in the past. Of course, that is not possible even in MRP. But when the basic documents of the passport are forged and brought, all the security is not as mentioned here.
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