The Department of Passport on Monday launched ‘live enrolment system’, a high-tech system which will make passport delivery service faster.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa on Monday launched the live enrolment system by obtaining a new passport - within 1o minutes.

His photo was taken at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Singha Durbar. The photo was sent to the Department of Passport, and within 1o minutes, his passport was ready. DoP chief Lok Bahadur Thapa handed over the new passport to DPM and Minister for Foreign Affairs Thapa.

“This is an important milestone,” said DPM Thapa, adding he was ‘thrilled’ by the instant service.

The live enrolment service, installed at DoP, now onwards is available for the general public. However, they will not be getting their passports within 10 minutes. Passports to the general public will be delivered after five days from the date they submit their forms. But nonetheless, passport seekers do not have to wait for seven days.

The DoP is planning to install nine live enrolment centres on its premises, which will start services from the first week of December. Other 11 centres will be set up at various Nepali missions abroad.

With old handwritten passports no more valid Tuesday onwards, the DoP has expedited its plan to install such live enrolment centres so that those who are yet to replace their old passports with machine readable ones could get them issued as soon as possible. The International Civil Aviation Organisation, a United Nations Specialised Agency, had set the deadline for replacing all non-machine readable passports with machine readable passports by November 24, 2015 (Tuesday).

Tuesday onwards, those holding old handwritten passport cannot make international flights.  

The DoP hopes this system will minimise the errors also that were earlier seen.

To obtain a passport, a passport seeker now will pose for a photo, fill the form, provide his signature and after five days, s/he will get the document.

Those applying from districts, however, will get their passports in 10 days instead of 15 days. Those applying from Nepali missions in abroad will also get their passports in five days.

The DoP on October 16 had reached an agreement with Oberthur Technologies, which provided the technology to Nepal for machine readable passports, to install 50 live enrolment centres in Kathmandu and Nepali missions abroad.

According to the DoP Nepali missions in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, the US, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong will provide the services to Nepalis.

Two live enrolment centres each will be installed in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah and Riyadh) and the US (Washington and New York).

Since the introduction of machines readable passports in 2010, the DoP has so far issued 3.8 million machine readable passports and replaced 1.7 million hand-written ones with the new ones.