July 01, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 4, 1427

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ISLAMABAD: June 30: National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Chairman Brig (Retd) Saleem Ahmed Moeen on Friday said that mobile telephone companies were giving connections against fake Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) providing communication facility also to criminals and terrorists.

Addressing a press conference he said cellular telephone companies issued their Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs) against even those CNICs which were not verified by the Nadra and found fake or altered.

“We know that the cards we have rejected, used for seeking mobile telephone connections and the companies did not object,” the official said. The provision of CNICs has become mandatory in the country for getting any mobile telephone connection under the government’s order.

The NADRA chief said the authority had been working on a project to issue anti photocopy CNICs in future. “We have initiated a project to prepare CNICs which cannot be photo copied in order to minimize chances of forgery in different deals and procedures,” he added.

However, he said the plan to eliminate photo copy culture could not be enforced unless all district courts (Kutchehries) and higher courts and relevant departments are computerised. Mr Moeen said curbing the photo copy culture also required a political will.

Following provision of online verification facility to scheduled banks, no official stamp for attestation of CNICs would be required. “We have also written a letter to the State Bank Governor in this connection exempt attestation of CNICs by government officials,” he added. The Nadra has so far issued 52 million CNICs and 30 million children have also been registered.

Responding to a question about the objection recently raised by the opposition on NADRA’s income and expenditure, the official said the authority was self-generating organization and it never takes grant from government to meet its development and non development expenditures. “Our salary bill of around 12,000 employees from this year has increased from Rs1.3 billion to Rs1.5 billion and we also pay pension to the tune of over Rs900 million every year to retired employees of old registration department,” he said.

The NADRA, he said, had so far earned 33 million dollars only from issuance of Pakistan Origin Cards (POCs) and National Identity Card for Overseas Pakistanis (NICOP). “We are the world’s leading organization in preparing security documents and have raised country’s image by issuing state of the art Machine Readable Passport (MRP),” he maintained.

Mr Moeen said the Nadra was also working on preparing a software for issuance of computerised driving licences which would be another source of income for the authority.