Kathmandu, November 21: The government has decided to purchase 700,000 electronic passports.
The meeting of the Council of Ministers held on Friday approved the purchase for the interim period from the same French supplier as before, according to a new agreement, until new passports can be issued. Government spokesperson and Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Jagadish Kharel, said that the Department of Passports has been authorized to procure the passports through a variation order.

Minister Kharel stated that the government took this step after passport shortages emerged, even though the previous contract had already been cancelled.

The government has appointed Deepak Shrestha as the Member Secretary of the Lumbini Development Trust and the Lumbini Development Council. Likewise, the government has decided to grant special promotions—promoting one Major General of the Nepal Army to Lieutenant General, and one Lieutenant General to the rank of General.

The Cabinet has also decided to approve a delegation led by Energy Ministry Secretary Chiranjivi Chataut to participate in the 7th meeting of the Nepal–Bangladesh Joint Working Group and Joint Steering Committee on energy-sector cooperation, scheduled to be held in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Mangsir 10 and 11.

Similarly, the government has approved the participation of Rina Rana, a member of the Indigenous Nationalities Commission, in a women’s seminar being held in Lhasa, China, from Mangsir 8 to 12.

People’s News Monitoring Service.