SARLAHI: Foreign employment aspirants and students wanting to pursue studies abroad have been hit hard due to District Administration Office Sarlahi’s decision to stop distributing passports. The reason: Nepal could not meet the deadline for introducing the machine readable passports mooted by International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Rajesh Kumar Yadav, a student of Sarlahi, returned home frustrated despite receiving scholarship to study MBBS in Bangladesh after he was denied passport. Yadav complained that failure to get the passport had ruined his educational future.

Over 100 passport seekers had to return empty-handed from the DAO today after DAO’s decision.

Shreenath Poudel, administrative officer, District Administration Office, claimed that a public notice stating that issuance of handwritten passports had been stopped was pasted on the main door of the office. “We had to stop distributing handwritten passport as the government has failed to meet the deadline to introduce machine readable passports,” he added.

Bidur Kumar Pyakurel, Sarlahi representative, Informal Sector Service Centre Nepal (INSEC Nepal), however, countered that no formal public notice was put on the door of the DAO and common public had no knowledge of it. Expressing plight of commoners, Pyakurel said, “Some of the passport seekers had to endure five hour-journey on feet in the scorching sun to reach the headquarters.”

On Tuesday 108, and on Wednesday 111 persons had got their passports made. The record at passport section in the DAO shows that on average 50 persons used to receive passports daily. Following the district administration’s inability to issue passports, the locals will have to wait for at least four months before MRP are issued in the district.