The DoP (Department of Passport) has now aimed to replace all the old passports (handwritten) by MRP (Machine Readable Passports) by Nov 2015. Since 16th December 1010 the department has distributed about 1.5 million MRPs. Among them half of them were replaced from handwritten old passports. In December 2010 when MRPs were launched, Central Passport Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that by November 2015 they will replace about 3 million handwritten passports.
Currently DoP produces 4000 passports a day and per month 100,000 in number. According to DG Khanal they had already started to raise the production up to 6000.
He also added if things go according to their plan they will be able to distribute around 1.2 million MRPs by November 2015. Among 1.5 million NRNs only 87,443 has converted their passports to MRP by Nepali embassies so far. Many Nepalese having old passports are mainly those who are working in Gulf countries while there are also few living in the USA, UK, Japan, India, Canada, Australia and others.