KATHMANDU: The government has decided to procure the Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) required for the national identity card program from IN Group, a French state-owned company, through a government-to-government (G2G) arrangement.

The decision, approved by the Cabinet on June 12, authorizes the Department of National ID and Civil Registration to negotiate and sign the agreement without competitive bidding. The system will support the licensing of 10 million biometric records for the next phase of the national identity card program.

ABIS stores and verifies biometric information, including fingerprints, facial images, and iris data, enabling identity verification, duplicate detection, crime investigation, and other security-related functions.

According to the department, the procurement will follow the pricing agreed in fiscal year 2018/19, when the license fee was fixed at EUR 0.0995 per unit, equivalent to about Rs 17.49 at the current exchange rate. The government had earlier begun issuing national identity cards to government employees and residents of Taplejung before expanding the program nationwide. The new procurement is intended to cover the remaining 10 million people.

The Cabinet has approved the direct procurement of 1.5 million licenses initially, with the remaining 8.5 million to be acquired through the G2G mechanism.

The department also clarified that IDEMIA, the company involved in Nepal’s passport project, has no role in the procurement, despite its former Smart Identity business having merged into IN Group. Officials said the agreement will be negotiated directly between the governments of Nepal and France without intermediaries or commissions.