The Department of Passports on Monday issued a second international bid for printing and supplying e-passports, four months after the first tender was cancelled.

The new bid comes amid allegations of corruption in the procurement of a security printing facility that would have enabled Nepal to print the passports in the country.

“As the number of passports in stock is decreasing, we have again decided to go for fresh international bidding,” said Ramkaji Khadka, Director General at the Department of Passports. “We just have 550,000 ordinary passports in stock and a few thousands official and diplomatic passports and travel documents,” he added.

According to the bid documents, the winning company shall provide 2 million e-passports, out of which 1.6 million copies will have 32 pages and the rest 64 pages. The additional pages will be provided to frequent flyers.

The new passports, being procured to comply with International Civil Aviation Organization standards, will come in new shades. According to the bid document, the cover of ordinary passports, which at the moment is green, shall be changed to chocolate-brown. Similarly, diplomatic passports will have a crimson-red cover, official passports navy-blue, and peacekeepers’ passports tiger-orange.

Travel documents will be black, temporary passports chocolate-brown and seaman’s record book slate-brown. The cover page of all passport booklets shall bear a hot foil stamp of the national coat-of-arms.

The Department of Passports on November 8 cancelled an e-bidding notice for the printing, supply, delivery, installation, testing, commissioning and personalisation of machine-readable passports as the government was preparing to establish its own security printing press.

According to the new bid document, the government can order up to fifteen percent more or less passports than the number mentioned in the tender.

Firms and companies that are experienced in supplying and printing of e-passports for two countries shall be eligible to participate in the tender process. The bidder shall have a minimum annual turnover of US $ 50,000,000— taking into account the turnover of average of best three years among the last five years.

The plan to print the passports at home hit a roadblock after Gokul Prasad Baskota, a minister in the Oli Cabinet, was caught on tape negotiating a Rs700 million “commission” with an “agent” of a Swiss company vying for the press contract. Hours after the audio recording was leaked, Baskota, who was minister for communication and information technology, resigned.

The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee has also asked the government to put the entire security printing process on hold.

The bid issued earlier called for printing and supplying 5 million e-passports, three million more than the number quoted by the new tender. The number was reduced as officials hope to setup a security press system in the country within the next three years.