Currently, an average of 6,000 applications are received for passports daily. However, only 3,000 to 3,500 passports are being distributed daily. An employee said, ”If the situation continues like this, there is a possibility that the number of passports distributed daily may decrease further.”
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The Passport Department is running out of passports as an investigation into suspected irregularities in the passport purchase contract begins.
As the passport stock is dwindling, the Passport Department has also reduced the number of passports it distributes daily. The problem in passport distribution has started after a corruption case was filed against 18 people, including the Director General of the Passport Department, Tirtha Raj Aryal, on charges of irregularities in the passport purchase contract.
According to the department, an average of 6,000 applications are received daily for passports. However, only 3,000 to 3,500 passports are being distributed daily. An employee, who did not want to be named, said, "Now there is a possibility that the number of passports distributed daily may decrease further." Another senior official of the department said that if the current printing rate continues, the passport stock can only meet the demand for a few days and a shortage may arise.
‘The stock of ordinary passports has come down to less than 47,000 and now the demand can be met for only a few weeks. There is concern about how to handle this situation soon,’ said a joint secretary of the ministry. ‘On the one hand, cases have been filed against our officials, including two German companies, which has created a vacancy in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In such a situation, it is not clear who wants to take the risk of leading the passport department.’
According to an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the passport crisis may deepen from next week. He said that since the issue of how to work with the two German companies or what to do has not been decided, new problems may arise.
‘To solve the current problem, we will purchase some passports from a French company,’ said an official from the Prime Minister’s Office. ‘After that, a decision will be made to reach an agreement with the French company or call for a new tender.’
The CIAA had taken into custody on Ashad 16, Director General of the Passport Department Aryal, the department’s Information Technology Director KC, and Nepal representative of one of the contractor companies, Muehlbauer Malla, from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Before taking Director General Aryal into custody, Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s advisor and personal secretariat staff had summoned CIAA Chief Commissioner Prem Kumar Rai and other officials of the commission to Singha Durbar and pressured them to investigate the passport irregularities quickly.
The CIAA filed a corruption case against 16 individuals and two companies on Monday. Former Foreign Minister Arju Rana Deuba was also dragged into the investigation in the procurement case. For the same purpose, the CIAA had gone to the house that was burnt during the Gen-G movement in Budhanilkantha and pasted a three-day notice in Arju’s name.
