Nepal's government has extended a passport printing agreement with France's Oberthur Technologies, agreeing to buy 2.5 million MRPs at a per unit cost of US$4.89.The contract, which will cost around $3.25 million, will also include the installation of around 50 live enrolment centres in up to eight countries that have a high concentration of Nepalis.Addressing the International Relations and Labour Committee of the Legislature-Parliament yesterday, Minister for Foreign Affairs Mahendra Bahadur Pandey said that "the decision was taken for an interim period of two years as a fresh tender was not possible within five months".Nepal plans to replace handwritten passports issued before 2010 December with machine readable ones by the ICAO deadline of November 25.Under an existing agreement, OT has printed 4.5 million passports, with 3.5 million already issued to the applicants.

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