Govt Plans to Substitute MRPs with e-Passports from April 2020

Nepal government is planning to introduce electronic passport from mid-April 2020.

e-Passports have an electronic microprocessor chip embedded in them that contains the biometric information of the passport holder. Implementing e-passport system will increase security and aid in reducing passport forgery.

The Government had introduced Machine Readable Passport (MRP) back in 2011. So far, 5.5 million MRP have been issued.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Passport, there is still around 1.5 million books that need to be printed as MRP. Once these are printed out, the government will be able to introduce e-passports.

Although the request for e-Passport from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been approved two years ago by the Council of Ministers, a detailed study for the system is yet to be carried out.