By Purushottam P. Khatri

Kathmandu, jan 1: On the eve of Visit Nepal Year (VNY) and New Year 2020 on Tuesday, scenes at the arrival and departure sections of the Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) looked different from what it used to be in the past.
The Department of Immigration has given a new facelift to the arrival and departure sections of the TIA targeting the VNY 2020, Rajesh Panthi, immigration officer and under-secretary at the Tribhuvan International Airport, told The Rising Nepal.
Replacing old furniture and settings and outlooks of the TIA, the immigration has set up 11 brand new immigration desks at the arrival and seven other desks of the departure.
“We have almost replaced the old furniture and setting that were installed in 1957 inside the TIA, and this happened at the end of 2019,” Panthi said. “The arrival and departure sections of the TIA for the first time are equipped with Irish scanner and finger print scanner software programmes, which is based on biometric system, and CPU-less computer and flapped barriers were installed in all the immigration desks,” Panthi said.
According to Panthi, at one immigration desk, two staff members can easily be accommodated and perform their visas procedural work. This means, from 11 immigration desks, 22 passengers can get these services simultaneously at the arrival and 14 passengers at the departure section.
The immigration desk was designed at par with international standards with a compulsory provision of flap barriers. “Earlier, the immigration did not have such flap barrier at its immigration desk so that sometime passengers with or without intention could easily escape the hurdles without completing he immigration process”
Other important software that the immigration has set up at the TIA are the bio-metric based Irish machine and finger marks reading machines to keep the records of every arriving and departing passenger.
“Although these two machines were set up at the immigration desk, they are yet to come into operation, and we might bring them into operation within a week,” Ramchandra Tiwari, director and spokesperson at the Department of Immigration, said.
The immigration office at the TIA has also replaced old technology known as electromagnetic interference (EMI) software with newly developed software programme called Nepali Port, designed by Nepali engineers. To operate this new software, the Department had given training to over 200 staff members of the immigration.
“We have started providing service under this Nepali Port for the past one week,” Tiwari said.
The department has also installed fake document checker machine to detect and read any forged passports, visas and other tampered documents.
“The immigration office has also given a new look to the flooring, ceiling and supporting wall of the arrival and departure sections of the TIA, he said. The floor of the TIA was furnished with marbles and tiles, led light has been set up in all the ceilings and a separate selfie zone is fixed at the TIA,” Tiwari said.
Passengers at the departure and arrival sections can get their work done within two or three minutes if they have possessed all required documents, said Panthi.
The data of all those Nepali and foreign passengers visiting from the TIA will be stored at the government’s integrated data centre (GIDC), which is currently under the Home Ministry.