Ram Chandra Nepal

To provide passport services to Nepalis in Portugal, a joint team from the Passport Department in Kathmandu and the Nepali Embassy in France has served 987 clients in 3 days in the process of biometric collection which started on Friday.

On the first day on Friday, 182 children of Nepalese whose passports have expired, whose validity is less than one year, who were damaged or lost, and who were born in Portugal, 396 on Saturday and 409 on Sunday have been collected.

A three-member team led by Moti Bahadur Sris, director of the passport department, arrived in the capital Lisbon on Thursday to collect applications for electronic passports (e-passports). Three employees of the department and one from the Nepali Embassy in France are participating in the team, and it has been informed that one more employee will come from France from Monday.

Umesh Kumar Khadka, president of NRNA Portugal, said that the team started serving from Friday by conducting ‘Ghumti Seva Camp’ at the hall of Non-Resident Nepali Association Portugal in Lisbon.

NRNA vice president Shivsagar Budhathoki, who is active as a volunteer, informed that there is a large influx of Nepali beneficiaries in the camp after the service has started.

It is estimated that around the same number of applications will be collected as nearly 6,000 people have filled the online application to make a new passport. And team leader Moti b. Shrees said that he has requested the beneficiaries to be present on the specified day and time.

‘Now we are working by giving priority to those who have applied in advance to make a passport. We will try to provide other emergency and urgent consular services by looking at the needs and workload,’ said team leader Moti Sris.

Rajkumar Thapa, member of NRNA ICC, said that the camp, which will run for ten days, is being coordinated and facilitated by the unpaid Nepali Consulate General in Lisbon and the non-resident Nepali Association in Portugal, and the active Nepali organizations and social leaders here are actively supporting. Thapa has requested “the customer to come on the date and time they have booked and take the service in an easy and friendly manner”.