Nepal has scrapped a decision to award a lucrative contract for producing passports to a state-owned Indian firm, the government said Monday, hours before a court hearing into the deal. The government had faced widespread criticism over its decision to award the contract to the Indian firm without a competitive tender, with the opposition Maoist party accusing it of bowing to pressure from New Delhi.
"The government has decided to accept the advice of the parliamentary committee and procure passports through competitive bidding," the prime minister's spokesman Bishnu Rijal told AFP. The climb-down came four days after the Supreme Court ordered the government to put a hold on the deal and summoned Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Foreign Minister Sujata Koirala to explain their decision.