Nepal scraps MRP deal with India
The Nepal Government has revoked its decision to give the contract of printing Machine-Readable Passports (MRPs) to India.
A cabinet meeting held on Sunday evening at the Prime Minister's residence, decided to revoke the decision.
Speaking to reporters here, Government spokesperson and Information Minister Shankar Pokhrel said, the cabinet has decided to revoke the decision to give the MRP printing contract to India.
The meeting also decided to instruct the Foreign Ministry, which has signed an understanding with Security Printing and Minting Corporation (SPMC) of India on the MRP deal, to ask the Indian corporation to halt the printing process.
The Cabinet has instructed the Foreign Ministry to begin a fresh process of awarding MRPs printing contract through a global tender.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sujata Koirala has expressed her dissatisfaction of the decision not to print the passports in India.
Meanwhile, Nepal's opposition Maoist party has called off the nationwide general strike declared yesterday, after Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal agreed to scrap the controversial deal with India to print modern Nepali passports.
"We had primarily called the general strike to protest against the government's decision (to award the passport contract to Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India)," Maoist chief and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda said. "We are withdrawing the strike".
However, the Maoist chief added that his party's demand for the resignation of Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal would continue.
Prachanda also criticised the scrapped passport deal with India as the 'possibly worst blot in Nepal's history' and the gravest attack on national security.
The passport row, which could lead to the fall of the current government, began in January after the foreign ministry cancelled a bidding process started in 2004.
A letter written by the Indian ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood to Nepal's Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala a month earlier and tabled by Maoist MP Narayan Kaji Shrestha in parliament Sunday indicated that the Indian government had sought to bag the contract on the ground it would address India's security concerns due to the open border India shared with Nepal.
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