| February 12, 2002 | Tuesday | Ziqa’ad 28, 1422 |
Waiting for the NIC: DATELINE ISLAMABAD
Lahore and its hoary past: PUNJABI THEMES
THE Sindhi press has sharply reacted to the proposal of the National Reconstruction Bureau to create more provinces by dividing the existing ones. Kawish writes that President Gen Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly pledged to restore the rights of the provinces but in practice his government seems to be going in the opposite direction. After the introduction of district governments, they acquired many powers enjoyed by the provinces but it was promised that the Centre would soon relinquish some of its authority which would be given to the provinces. However, nothing was done in this respect and even the government could not announce the National Finance Commission award.
PREPARING, issuing and delivering new computerized National Identity Cards (NICs) to over 70 million plus eligible applicants across the country is a mammoth task. How mammoth it is can be judged by the fact that the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has only managed to prepare 4.4 million new NICs since it launched its registration drive in mid-2001.
And now the proposal to divide the provinces in more administrative units has been floated under the pretext that it would lead to better relationship between the Centre and the federating units, as well as between the units themselves. Rejecting this argument, the daily points out that the provinces are historical and political entities and not administrative units. Whenever and wherever artificial geographical boundaries were drawn, they proved to be opening of Pandora’s box and created problems instead of solving them. In African continent this practice by the colonial powers led to endless bloodshed which is continuing even today. When the British annexed Sindh province with Bombay, they had to face the people’s wrath and withdraw this decision. Even in recent past in our country, when One Unit was created to counter-balance the majority of the Bengali people, it was followed by popular mass movements in the smaller province. Ultimately One Unit was abolished but until then it had become too late and the country had to pay its price in the shape of its dismemberment and the emergence of its eastern wing as Bangladesh.
The daily concludes that any proposal to change the existing boundaries of the province must be abandoned once and for all as it will lead to further deprivation of the people of smaller provinces who are bound to resist this unthinkable step.
Commenting on the lingering water dispute between Punjab and Sindh, Tameer-i-Sindh writes that when Jam Sadiq’s government approved 1991’s water sharing formula, Sindh had some reservations about it. Later in 1994 due to efforts of then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, an inter-provincial ministerial committee evolved a new formula despite opposition from Sindh which sharpened the controversy. The implementation of this formula provided more water to Punjab and less than its need to Sindh. Consequently, the former reaped bumper crops while the latter was not even able to sow crops according to given targets. This situation compelled President Musharraf to intervene and ask the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) to distribute water according to the 1991 accord. But Punjab has been putting up resistance to this directive and has offered a new formula for water sharing on which Irsa has failed to evolve a consensus. The authority in its final decision should adopt a judicious formula for water distribution which may cater to the requirement of Sindh as well.
Ibrat reveals that the Sindh government is planning to settle Karachi’s Afghan refugees in other parts of the province, particularly in Hyderabad and Nooriabad areas. The presence of these refugees has only increased problems of lawlessness and unemployment. Instead of settling them on a permanent basis in the province, the government should adopt measures to provide housing and other basic facilities to the local population.
Hilal-i-Pakistan deplores that tree felling and wood theft has too often been reported from the forests in the Kutcha areas but now such reports are also coming from Thar and Kohistan. In these arid areas trees help keep the atmosphere moderate and prevent further desertification. If this practice is not checked, it will lead to an environmental disaster.
Awami Awaz deplores that the Hyderabad City Nazim wants to sell the Sindh University’s old campus and Mitha Ram hostel to the builder mafia. Already this approach by the city’s former administrations has deprived it of many parks and playgrounds. Now the City Nazim wants to get the two historical buildings of the city demolished to be substituted by commercial high-rise buildings. This should not be allowed and the two buildings which house the Sindh University’s faculty of education and that of criminology, besides teachers’ hostel, should be preserved as national heritage.
This figure was revealed last week when Nadra signed an agreement in Islamabad with the Pakistan Post Office to deliver these ready cards by registered post to the respective applicants at a promised delivery rate of 100,000 cards a day beginning on Feb 20. According to Nadra’s website, six million NIC applications are pending.
Nadra is way behind its stated schedule. According to its website, all the old NICs would be cancelled by December 31, 2001, and a new computerized database system would be in place whereby the central database at Nadra headquarters in Islamabad would be linked by online access through the Internet to the provincial, regional and district headquarters. This has not happened and millions and millions of people still do not have the new NICs. The new target date is now June 30, 2002, but achieving this seems no less a herculean task.
Getting a new computerized NIC seemed at first to be a simple enough procedure. Applicants were supposed to get the NIC registration forms for Rs3 each from Nadra offices, Pakistan Post Offices and District Offices, and submit the completed forms, together with photograph and Rs35, at Nadra offices or the District Offices. Applicants were given receipts and told that their new NICs would be ready within 16 weeks.
Somehow, however, things did not quite work out as easy as it seemed. Many never got their new NICs. Many others got them much later but with errors like spelling mistakes. Lakhs of new NICs have been printed which contain such errors, according to one Nadra official. These cards were returned to Nadra for correction but since then, many applicants have not got them back. Some applicants, like students, are in a fix because they need the NICs for one purpose or the other, like submitting annual examination forms for BA/BSc.
Apart from administrative and logistics problems, a major reason for the delay in issuing NICs lay in the fact that there is no online access between the District Offices where the applications are received, and the Nadra headquarters in Islamabad, where the printing of all the NICs is being done. The result is that the computer data from all the District Offices have to be manually transported to Nadra office in Islamabad, usually by air, and the printed NICs transported back to the respective District Offices for onward delivery to the respective applicants.
Nadra is now trying to make up somewhat for this problem by signing the agreement with PPO to deliver the new NICs to the applicants. In addition, it has also set up “swift centres” of NIC registration at selected cities, one of the first was in Rawalpindi. Applicants who submit their forms at these centres are supposed to get their NICs in a week’s time. The catch is each form has to be submitted with Rs180, five times the normal amount of Rs35. For the majority of people who cannot afford to pay this amount, this is a disincentive more than anything else for getting the new NICs. Other swift centres are being planned for Lahore (three of them), Peshawar, Abbottabad and Kohat. But this will severely limit issuing of new NICs to only those who can easily afford to submit the Rs180 with each completed application form.
The biggest problem that Nadra faces is in the sheer enormity of the numbers of people who are 18 years and above and are eligible for NICs, over 70 million. This problem is not being eased in any way by the fact that Nadra is working with a time constraint. It would want to complete the NIC issuing well before the general election at the end of this year.
In focussing on the target date and number of new cards issued, there is the danger that one major problem of the whole NIC registration process will be overlooked. This is the proper checking and verification of the true identity of the applicant. Nadra says it will punish fake form attesters. But this does not seem to be a sufficient check.
Particularly so since Nadra is preparing its Citizens’ Database based on the National Data Forms collected during the 1998 census. This means that those who had filled in forms during this census would not need to be checked and verified when they apply for the new NICs. The major flaw in this policy is that hundreds of thousands of people have previously got forged ID cards, passports and property papers made on fake names and identities. Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and refugees have obtained ID cards through illicit means. How is Nadra ensuring that all these are being properly screened out? What are the proper checks in place to ensure that new computerized NICs are not issued under such fake names and identities?
Another major loophole is that there is no system of checking at the moment on Nadra’s computers if an applicant is submitting an NIC application a second time with, say, a different name but the same photograph, or even submitting a second time with the same name. So long as this loophole is not plugged, there exists the real possibility of people, especially some political party workers and other organizations, getting more NICs made in order to cast fake votes during the coming election, which has been a problem in the past.
If the ambitious new NIC registration exercise is supposed to serve the very purpose of keeping a check on illegal elements and fake identities, then more foolproof measures ought to be in place to ensure that the new NICs are issued to bona fide citizens of Pakistan. And if only a fraction of the eligible applicants have been issued their new NICs and will be getting them soon courtesy of PPO, then it looks like Nadra will need not only to step up considerably its registration drive but also cut down considerably the time it takes to prepare and issue the cards.
THE Jashn-i-Baharan is being celebrated in the city in which the most exclusive programme will be on Basant, the festival of kite flying. The British army was moved to the Mian Mir Cantonment about which our well-known architect, Pervez Vandal, has written an analytical article for the quarterly, Tareekh, (published by Fiction House, Lahore). The latest issue of the magazine includes articles on Lahore some of which were presented in a seminar on the city.
In his latest column, an Urdu columnist from Lahore, has praised Karachi for its love of democracy and its attitude towards an exiled prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif. He may be right because he was closer to the former PM and the crowd around him. But his views on some other commonalities between the two cities are amazing.
He says that while we have a Food Street in Gowalmandi (of which we are proud because it has produced two prime ministers — Mairaj Khalid, a caretaker PM, and Nawaz Sharif, who held office twice. Incidentally, before they became prime ministers they had shifted to Hall Road and Model Town. But compared to Karachi, its food is no more a speciality.
The columnist is also all praise for the cultural activities in Karachi which in his assessment have surpassed those in Lahore, which was once considered the cultural capital of northern India. The reason given by the columnist is that the mushairas in Karachi are now much better organized and better attended than these in Lahore. Another reason cited in the column is that the affluent people in Karachi offer more patronage to literary and cultural activities. He may be right because the Karachi-based business houses finance advertisements to the print media while those in Lahore have been somewhat less generous.
The columnist is a proprietor and editor of a literary magazine which needs advertisements and other financial help.
All said and done, the fact is that Karachi has no such columnist as Lahore has in the person of the gentleman concerned who says that Karachi has much better kebabs to offer.
The question is: when was this city founded? According to the common myth, it was founded by Loh, and Loh, according to Dr Anjum Rahmani, is the place where now stands a temple in the Lahore Fort.
The article about Lahore talks of a later period and fails to mention its past about which even the Lahore Gazette of 1932 says:
“It is not probable that Lahore was founded before the first century AD, as we neither find it mentioned in connection with Alexander, nor is it described by Strabo or Pliny. On the other hand, it may possibly be the Labokla of Ptolemy as Amarkatis, which is mentioned by that author as near Labokla, has been identified by Cunningham with the ruins of Amba Kapi, about 25 miles from Lahore. The first certain historical record of Lahore is, however, that of Hiuen Tsiang, who mentions it as a large Brahmanical city visited by him in AD 630 — the period of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him ) — on his way to Jullunder. About this time it is probable that the capital was transferred to Sialkot, as Al-Beruni speaks of Lahore as a province whose capital was Mandhukur, and it is noticeable that Al Masudi makes no mention of Lahore.”
The Gazetteer goes to the first century AD but points out that it might have existed when Alexander invaded the subcontinent. It might be the city mentioned as Labokla. If it had a string Brahmanical establishment or concentration in the 7th century, then it must have a long history spread over many centuries. The question about the remains of that period may confuse us. If it was founded by Loh or much later by some other people, where are the remains of that period? But this precedes another question: what about the remains of the Mughal mosques, mazars, shops and markets which existed at the place where the Lahore Railway Station was raised? Thornton quotes a British visitor to Lahore in his book, Lahore. He (the visitor) came “to this city in 1809. He had already visited the city many years before. He says:
“Now the city gives a deserted look and many tall and beautiful buildings are falling apart.” Among these ruins, spread in a vast area, he finds no human soul passing through the once prosperous parts of the city.
That means that if there are no remains of the period before Christ, it cannot be denied that there was no city of Lahore. Another historian, Col Dr Khwaja Abdur Rasheed, in his article in the Lahore Number of Nuqoosh claims that the city was a contemporary to Harrappa and Moejodaro which were punished by Allah and buried under a thick layer of dust. Lahore did not meet this fate. Therefore, it is one of the ancient cities of the world which have a very long history.
One may not agree with Khwaja Rasheed but serious attention must be paid to the ruins and mounds around Lahore and the Ravi.
Here one may point out that the river Ravi never changed course except for some minor deviations, particularly in the Nankana and Sharaqpur areas where there are many old mounds yet to be investigated by the Archaeology Department. Even the Lahore Fort must be viewed from an archeological point of view. — STM