Kathmandu, Nov. 13 -- Negotiations between the Department of Passports (DoP) and IDEMIA, the French firm that has been providing passports to Nepal from 2010 to earlier this year, are in the final stages of negotiations to procure stopgap passports. This comes as the current stock dwindles and the new contract for biometric passports awarded to German firms Veridos and Muehlbauer will only take effect from mid-March next year.

The DoP has also not closed talks with Veridos, which, along with IDEMIA, is being approached to supply conventional machine readable passports (MRP) to cover the shortfall until new biometric passports are delivered.

After intervention by Prime Minister Sushila Karki, who also oversees the Ministry of Foreign Aff...