LAHORE, March 9: The Punjab Information Department has decided to drop its plan of introducing domicile certificates in shape of magnetic cards.

The department had, in the PC-I, proposed introduction of new domicile certificates initially in six districts, including Lahore, Sialkot, Toba Tek Singh, Multan and Sargodha, at a cost of the Rs 28.229 million.

The domicile PC-1, along with proposals of six other projects, was to be tabled at a Punjab Development Working Party (PDWP) meeting here on Saturday but the sitting was postponed because of the arrival of a high-level delegation of the Asian Development Bank.

The meeting, scheduled for Monday now, would be attended by the planning and development board chairman, secretaries of the finance, information technology and home departments, board of revenue’s senior member, 4-corps engineers headquarters commander, district nazims of Lahore and Sialkot, and Punjab economic research institute and land record directors.

According to information department secretary Saeed Ahmad Alvi, hard copies of domicile certificates would be used instead of imported cards. “This will save around Rs 10 million.”

The department had estimated the cost of the imported cards at Rs12.250 million but the P&D, in its comments on the PC-1, had asked it to ensure that these cards were not available in the local market to check forgery.

The P&D had reportedly asked the information technology department to also certify that the estimated cost of each card was as per the market rates.

It further pointed out that switching over from paper-based domiciles to plastic cards required changes in the existing laws which the information department had ignored.

According to the P&D, since most of the information pertaining to a person would be in the magnetic strip on the back of the domicile card, the submission of this information to the authorities seeking the domicile proof would also entail difficulties.

Meanwhile, Mr Alvi said that his department was going to present the seven proposals to the PDWP for approval after entertaining objections by the P&D wherever possible. “Further amendments would be madeif suggested by the meeting,”he said.