The government has initiated a new process immediately after deciding to cancel the contract on April 25. The work of collecting, managing, storing and printing personal details for the national identity card was being done with the help of a foreign company. Now, the government is preparing to do that work itself.
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The government is going to do the management and maintenance of the information system, including printing the national identity card, on its own. Earlier, the collection of personal details for the national identity card, its management, storage, and printing of identity cards were being done with the help of a foreign company.
The National Identity Card and Registration Department under the Ministry of Home Affairs has canceled the contract called for support and maintenance of the National Identity Card Management Information System (NIDMIS Support and Maintenance) and stated that it will do the work itself. It is stated that it will seek the support of the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers for that. Information Officer and Director of the department, Neerajan Shrestha, said that the contract was canceled by publishing a notice on April 25.
The department has issued a notice and stated that the procurement process for the consultancy service called for maintenance and support of the National Identity Card Management Information System has been canceled. The notice states that the decision to cancel the contract has been taken in accordance with the provisions of the Public Procurement Act, 2063. Three international consulting companies from France, Malaysia and Dubai participated in the contract process. Sections 26 and 36 of the Procurement Act provide for cancellation of the procurement process if the bid is not effective and any proposal is not technically or financially suitable. The department has said that the contract process has been canceled in accordance with the same provision. 
The notice for the contract was published on 2082 Paush. ‘Three companies had applied. We were in the process of studying the financial proposal. The technical proposal was not even opened and examined,’ said an official of the department. ‘In the changed situation, the order came from the Prime Minister’s Office to do the work ourselves. Accordingly, we have decided to cancel the contract.’
Earlier, up to 18,000 national identity cards were printed daily, but currently only 3,000 are printed. Immediately after the decision to cancel the contract on 25 Baisakh, the then Director General of the department, Namraj Ghimire, was transferred to the Muslim Commission on 28 Baisakh. A director of the department said that he had taken a stand by canceling the contract, saying that it was impossible for the department to do the technical work itself. After Ghimire was transferred, the Ministry of Home Affairs appointed Joint Secretary Krishna Poudel as Director General on 18 Jestha. ‘The Prime Minister’s Secretariat had given a directive with pressure to cancel the contract,’ the director said. A member of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat also said that the contract was canceled so that all the work related to the national identity card could be done by the government itself. ‘The contract was canceled so that the government could appoint the necessary technical manpower to do the work of the national identity card,’ he told Kantipur.
According to the department, Dubai’s Gravity Group IND LLC, Malaysia’s Iris Corporation, and France’s In Smart Identity France SAS (Idemia) were in competition for the NIDMIS Support and Maintenance contract. Earlier, Advantage International Pvt. Ltd., the Nepali agent of French company IDEMIA, had been working on the national identity card. An agreement was signed between the French company and the government in 2018 to print biometric smart cards and include personal details. It was responsible for the biometric registration system of citizens, smart card production and card details printing system. After the agreement was completed, a new contract process was initiated.
‘Our internal manpower can do work related to Level 1 and 2. We had issued a notice to appoint international-level consultants to do high-level technical work above Level 3,’ said a source close to the department. ‘The work can be done by domestic experts from the Prime Minister’s Office. Now there is no need to appoint foreign companies and manpower for consultation.’ The Prime Minister's Office will look into the work that the department has not been able to do, and the decision to cancel the contract states that it will provide necessary support for that.'
Within a few weeks of the formation of the government led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah, the responsibility of information technology and digital governance was added to the jurisdiction of the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. Meanwhile, the government has also formed a separate Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. The government is also carrying out the Organizational Structure and Management Job Description Survey (ONM). Department officials say that they will take help from the same body that is responsible for providing technical support to the department in the survey. 'If it is under the Prime Minister's Office, we will take help from that body. If the Information and Technology Department is formed, help can also be taken from that,' they said.
Information Officer Shrestha of the department informed that details of 20 million citizens, including biometrics, have been collected so far. According to him, 7.8 million identity cards have been printed. The Auditor General's Annual Report 2083 has pointed out that the work of printing and distributing identity cards has not been completed on time as per the action plan. The government's policy and program for 2080/81 mentioned that a campaign would be launched to distribute identity cards to all citizens within 1 year by developing an integrated national identity card management information system that includes personal and biological details of citizens. According to the Home Administration Reform Action Plan 2078, the target was to collect details of 20 million citizens and distribute identity cards to 10 million citizens within 2 years.
One of the two printers in the department is completely broken and the other is only partially working, so identity cards have not been printed as expected. There are complaints that citizens have been suffering due to delays in printing even though identity cards have been made mandatory for various government works. 'A French company had provided 2 printers to print national identity cards.' When both the printers were operating in two shifts, 16 to 18 thousand national identity cards were printed daily,' said a technical employee of the department, 'Now one of the printers is broken. The other one cannot work at full capacity either. Only 3 thousand are printed daily.'
He complained that the department lacks skilled manpower and has to seek help and advice from the technicians of the old French company when technical problems arise. 'The old company has also left. There has been talk of not taking help from the new company either,' he added, 'We cannot operate it after the system is down. The work of the national identity card is going on in God's hands.' The service has been partially and completely shut down due to technical problems in the National Identity Card Management Information System (NIDMIS) time and again. ‘The service where the system verifies the NID number received during new enrollment is frequently disrupted. This has caused inconvenience to service recipients,’ he said.
The department had issued a notice on 23 Baisakh stating that the circular-related service was partially disrupted, causing inconvenience to the general public. At that time, services such as correcting identity card details, obtaining identity card number during birth registration, verifying social security allowance while renewing identity cards, and other public services interconnected with the information system were disrupted. According to department officials, these problems continue to occur and have been operating after maintenance.
The government is preparing to officially recognize biometric details mentioned in identity cards in the integrated entrance examination for passports, citizenship, driving licenses, social security allowances, bank and financial institutions, pensions, personal event registration, company registration, permanent account number, insurance, social security fund, company registration, health insurance, telephone and SIM cards, vehicle registration, land purchase, foreign study permits, and educational programs including MBBS.
