Ekantipur - KATHMANDU, Feb 25 -

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the legislature-parliament on Thursday directed the government to hand over the contract to print the Machine Readable Passport (MRP) on competition basis.

The PAC gave such directive at a time when Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sujata Koirala was preparing to shoulder the responsibility of printing MRPs to an Indian company on her own.

Minister Koirala is all set to table the contract proposal at todays cabinet meeting for approval.

A meeting of the PAC held this morning directed to renew the passport as per the tender process that was scrapped earlier by the Foreign Ministry.

The Foreign Ministry had scrapped the tender process citing irregularities and errors on Jan. 14.

On Dec. 9 the Ministry had called for applications for the MRPs printing contract as part of its preliminary selection process, in which Sagem Sécurité and Oberthur Technologies of France, Jimalto of Finland and Tri-M Technologies of Singapore were chosen.

The PAC today directed to select one of the four companies through competition and hand over the contract.

Earlier, the PAC had consulted the foreign ministry and its office bearers regarding the passport printing process. Article src : http://www.ekantipur.com/2010/02/25/t... Video src : Avenues TV