Kathmandu, March 8
Nepal is preparing to import a security printing press by mid-July this year, inform concerned officials.
The government plans to print postal stamps, excise duty stickers, and academic credentials with the machine.
The government has estimated the machine will cost Rs 800 million, but importing it can save Rs 9 billion every year, informs Bikal Paudel, the executive director of the Security Printing Centre.
“Once the machine is imported, it will take around one year to install and prepare for the operation. We will prepare the IT Park in Banepa to install this machine.”
Paudel assures there will not be any human resource crisis to operate the machine.
Earlier in February last year, an audiotape had leaked out, in which the then communications minister Gokul Baskota had demanded Rs 740 million commission from the agent of a Swiss company, KBA-Notasys, to give his side a contract to establish a security printing press in Nepal. The controversy had cost Baskota his ministerial job.
