KARACHI: Nadra fails to dispel misgivings about CNICs
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, March 10: The National Registration Database Authority (Nadra) failed to deliver the computerized national identity cards (CNICs) at the doorstep of applicants, as promised earlier.
“We have received a bulk of 700,000 CNICs from Islamabad and due to the shortage of delivery staff, we are unable to deliver the cards to the address given on the CNICs,” an official in Nadra’s provincial headquarters said.
The Nadra’s provincial headquarters had received numerous complaints against its delivery staff. In one case, 23 CNICs forms submitted by the people were found in a garbage dump at Saddar in the last week of December, for which an inquiry was conducted and the authorities claimed that the forms were carrying objections and returned to the applicants asking them to re-submit the forms.
The Nadra’s headquarters in Islamabad later decided that the CNICs would now be distributed through the postal service, the sources added.
A number of people complained that they had submitted their CNIC forms along with family members more than six months back but they were yet to receive the new cards. Some said that only one family member had received the CNIC and the remaining members of their families were still waiting for the new cards.
An official in Nadra’s provincial headquarters said they had received CNICs in bulk and they sorted out bundles on first-come- first-opened basis. The CNICs were sent to the provincial headquarters with a serial number. However, he failed to explain that when a family was allotted a serial number why the CNICs of the same family were packed in separate bundles.
About the complaint that five forms of a family were submitted on one receipt and the CNIC delivery man took away that receipt by delivering only one card, the official said the photocopy of old ID cards should be handed over to the delivery man on receipt of cards of other members of the family.
A number of people complained that Nadra has also failed to deliver ‘B’ form mentioning the family members under 18-years of age. People complained that they had received CNICs but they did not receive the ‘B’ forms, which created doubts in their minds as to whether their family members under 18-years of age were registered in Nadra data bank or not.
Some people also complained that their children, who were under 18-years of age and studying in matriculation or intermediate classes, could not get their domiciles and permanent residence certificates prepared as they did not have ‘B’ forms. They said they were now being asked by the authorities concerned to seek ‘B’ forms at Nadra’s provincial headquarters on the basis of their old cards.
Some citizens argued that the government was running two parallel systems of giving identity to its citizens. They also argued that with the introduction of CNICs, there was no need of domiciles, PRCs and residential status as these documents also referred to one’s identity. “How many documents a citizen has to obtain to prove his identity that he or she is a Pakistani”, a man at Nadra’s provincial headquarters, who was standing in a queue said.
Another man said: “Nadra had claimed that a ‘B’ form would be delivered along with the CNIC but Nadra has miserably failed to meet its commitment.”
The people were of the view that Nadra’s swift centre for giving CNICs at Awami Markaz, which was just an attempt to generate more revenues. They said that Nadra was exorbitantly charging people to give them CNIC, ordinary in 28 days and urgent in 10 days. The people, who had submitted their forms some six or eight months back and had not yet received their cards, would now obviously prefer to get the CNICs from swift centre where they were being charged much more amount than they would deposit in an ordinary way.
An official in Nadra’s provincial headquarters said that those submitted their forms in ordinary way by depositing Rs35, could not re-submit their forms in swift centre and they had to wait for the receipt of their cards to be sent by Nadra, Islamabad office.
However, they said that the submission of forms at swift centre in Awami Markaz was trustworthy.
