Posted by: Swiss July 6, 2010
Login in to Rate this Post:
2 
? 
Liked by
?
Liked by
French Company bags MRP Contract
Tuesday, 06 July 2010 15:12
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs awarded the printing contract of Machine Readable Passports (MRP) to a French company called Oberthur Technologies on Tuesday. The French company was selected out of the total four companies that had filed applications.
The French company had filed for application for MRP printing contract at the lowest cost US$ 3.59 per copy.
The ministry finalised the MRP bid after its MRP evaluation team headed by Mukti Nath Bhatta, chief of protocol, submitted its report to foreign secretary Madan Kumar Bhattarai earlier today.
When the ministry opened tender on May 18, at least four international companies officially expressed their willingness to contest the bidding for MRP. Indonesian state venture Perum Peruri, De La Rue from the United Kingdom and Singapore-based 3M Technology had participated in the bidding along with Oberther Technologies.
The ministry's special evaluation team reported that 3M quoted its bid at $ 4.50 per copy while De La Rue and Perum Peruri quoted $6.99 and $5.99 respectively.
Meanwhile, Perum Peruri and De La Rue have filed their joint protest note at the ministry Monday claiming that the French firm lacked several requirements while submitting its bid.
Earlier, the government was forced to withdraw its decision to award the MRP contract to an Indian government owned firm after being accused of putting the national security at risk. There were also concerns of irregularities over the MRP deal with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) asking the government to terminate the contract with the Indian firm.
Nepal has already missed International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO)'s two deadlines to introduce the MRPs and recently sent a request to the UN body to extend it till end of this year.
Source: Nepalnews.com
Last edited: 06-Jul-10 10:44 PM