The deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organization for using hand-written passports expires on Monday. According to the Department of Passport, as per the mandatory provision of the IACO, only machine readable passports (MRP) will be valid from Tuesday onwards. The department has warned of immigration troubles one could face if they are travelling with phased-out hand-written passports.
Lok Bahadur Thapa, director general of the department, said several measures have been taken to avoid difficulties for those still bearing hand-written passports at least for some time. “We have already urged all passport bearers to replace their manual passports with MRPs. In case of Nepalis living abroad, they should contact their respective embassies,” Thapa said. Since the launch of the MRP in 2010 December, the department has issued 3.7 million MRPs and replaced 1.7 million hand-written passports.
