DoFE officials have said that starting May 15, they will not issue work permits to those with handwritten passports. The decision was made keeping in mind the approaching deadline of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to complete the phase out process of the non-machine-readable passports globally. The deadline ends on November 24, 2015.

DoFE Director General Krishna Hari Pushkar said the decision aims to relieve the migrant workers from unnecessary trouble of making new passports in the labour destinations.

People going abroad in two years work contract will mandatorily have to make MRPs through the Nepali embassy in their work destinations, as the validity date of handwritten passports expires during their work tenure.

“It takes at least six months to acquire passport through the Nepali missions in the labour destinations. This move will be helpful for both the workers and the government,” said Pushkar.

The Nepali mission in the Gulf and Malaysia have also been suggesting the government to resort to such measures as they do not have adequate manpower and resources to tackle the growing number of MRP seekers. The understaffed missions are apprehensive of possible crisis the MRP seekers might invite with the approaching deadline to do away with  handwritten passports and adopt MRPs.

DoFE has already made MRPs mandatory for the citizens travelling to countries that have no diplomatic relations with Nepal.

Raju Khadka, a worker from Bara district, said he was asked to replace his handwritten passport first in order to be eligible to go to South Sudan.

 “The department has started to return many workers like me. I will have to apply for MRP again,” Khadka said. The DoFE move is “well intended” but the information should be circulated among prospective workers, he added. “Had I known earlier, I could have processed it through the normal system by paying Rs 5,000. Now, I have to pay double the amount to obtain it as I need the passport urgently.”

The recruiting agencies and DoFE staffers told the Post that they have started to discourage workers from using handwritten passports since the beginning of this year. The exact data is hard to come by but a rough estimates of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) show that more than 50 percent people still possess handwritten passports.

Though the foreign ministry believes that the DoFE’s decision could play supportive role in replacing the handwritten passport within the ICAO deadline, it said there will be no such prohibition from its side.

MoFA spokesperson Deepak Dhital said there will be no barrier for handwritten passport bearers to travel abroad until it is valid.

“While discouraging the new workers from going abroad on handwritten passports could be helpful in many ways, we must also not forget that it’s their right to carry them till the validity date,” said Dhital.

MoFA officials said the ministry will be supportive of the DoFE decision as it aims to assist the workers and help in lessening its own workload and that of embassies in the labour destinations.