The Public Procurement Review Committee has approved the e-passport procurement process carried out by the Passport Department. A three-member bench of the committee gave a decision in favor of the department regarding the passport procurement process on Tuesday. Earlier, even the Supreme Court did not issue an interim order on the writ petition to stop the passport purchase process. The department said that after the decision of the committee, the process of purchasing passports has been resumed.

The department had invited international tenders on December 13 for the purchase of 64 lakh blank booklets for electronic passports. Since the tender was called, questions have been raised about the process . Due to complaints in various agencies, the department extended the tender filing time several times .

The financial proposal for the bid was opened on June 14. The department had issued a notice of intention to accept the bids of two German companies Mubauer ID Service and Veridos on June 22. After that, the French company Idemia submitted an application to the Public Procurement Review Committee on June 8, demanding a review of the decision. The committee decided on Tuesday while hearing the same application of Idemia. The chairman of the committee is Raghuram Bista and the members are Rohit Kumar Bisural and Thaneshwar Gautam. It seems that the work of approving the technical proposal made by the passport department has been agreed. It does not seem that the petitioner's demand will be reached,' said the decision of the committee.

Advocate Kusum Kishore Koirala filed a petition in the Supreme Court on June 16. While hearing it, the Supreme Court had said that the interim order will not be issued on June 30. The director general of

department, Tirtha Raj Aryal, informed that the process of passport purchase has been started based on the decision given by the committee. The department has already notified the German companies Mubauer and Veridos to come and sign the contract within 15 days on Tuesday. The department is also under pressure as the copies of passports in the warehouse are decreasing day by day.

Director General Aryal said that the purchase of passports at a competitive price has proceeded within the process determined by the law. "Passports are being purchased this time at a cheaper price than they were bought before," he said, "We are trying to speed up the purchase process to avoid a shortage of passports." Aryal claimed that there will be no compromise with the quality of the passport if it is expedited. The

committee is a quasi-judicial body constituted by the government to decide on questions raised in the public procurement process. If you are not satisfied with the contract process, you can go to the committee for legal remedies. "The demands made by the legal method have already been resolved through the legal process," Director General Aryal said, "The order given by the public review committee has also clarified many things." He claimed that the department had decided to award the contract to the company that did not fulfill the technical conditions mentioned in the tender document. "After the notification of the intention to award the contract without doing so, we complained that it should be disqualified during the technical evaluation," he said, "The decision given by the committee is not satisfactory." We will go to the high court in consultation with the company and legal professionals.'' Although it is clearly mentioned in the tender notice that the blade server must be supplied, it is claimed by Idemia that they are trying to give the contract to Mübauer who did not meet the technical 'specification'.

Department is going to purchase electronic passports to reach the next 5 years . The government has allocated 12 billion rupees for that. The department called for tenders in two packages. Package 1 (data management, processing and passport distribution system) and package 2 (purchasing blank passport book and its personal details) are . The department issued a notice of intention to accept the bid submitted by Mübauer in package 1 and the bid submitted by Veridos in package 2 . Competitor Idemia had initially filed a petition in the department demanding the same information and related decision review . Idemia approached the Public Procurement Review Committee after the department said it would uphold its previous decision.

In the first package, the financial proposal of 1 billion 558 million 14 thousand 325 rupees 81 paisa and in the second package 6 billion 11 million 38 lakh 27 thousand 370 rupees 14 paisa was approved. The total amount for both is 7 billion 66 crore 46 lakh 41 thousand 695 rupees. Aryal said that if the expenses incurred in both packages are calculated, the price of each passport will be 8.62 US dollars. According to him, four years ago, a passport was purchased for $10.54. The department estimated its cost at 12 billion.

French company Idemia, which applied for a review of the decision, claimed that the amount it offered was lower than the accepted bid . Ideamia claims that the accepted tender is expensive because the exchange rate of Euro-Nepali rupee has changed on the date of opening of the financial proposal .

The French company Idemia, which applied for a review of the decision, claimed that the amount it offered was lower than the accepted bid . Ideamia argues that the approved tender is expensive as the Euro-Nepalese rupee exchange rate has changed on the date of opening of the financial proposal. Ideamia has said that the acceptance of the proposal, which is Rs. 280.95 million more than what it proposed, is a violation of the law. Ideamia argued that its offer was cheaper due to the difference in exchange rates and the various discounts it would get if it got both packages together . He claims that the decision of the department not to award the contract to the petitioner who is the lowest evaluated bidder is not in accordance with the law.

Ideamia is a company that has been supplying passports in Nepal for a long time. When the department called for tenders, some competing companies complained to various agencies saying that the conditions were set to award the tender to the French company. Based on those complaints, after the intervention of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, the department extended the deadline for amending some of the conditions in the tender. After the acceptance of the bid, Idemia raised questions about the work of the department.

After the government decided to replace the machine readable passport (MRP) and move to an electronic passport (e-passport), the tender for e-passport was called for the first time in August 2076 . Even then, the tender process became controversial. Finally, the department had to cancel the tender notice. The notice of the international tender call issued for the second time in February 2076 was also canceled months later. The third bidding process was completed in November 2077 and the French company was entrusted with the supply of passports. Before that MRP was also being supplied by Edemia.