ISLAMABAD, Oct 12: President General Pervez Musharraf on Thursday declared that only the Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) would be valid for casting vote in the general elections scheduled to be held next year, according to a Nadra press release.

“Due to authenticity of Nadra’s database, voting in the next elections will be done through computerised cards,” the press release quoted the president as saying after inaugurating ‘Nadra Kiosk’, a project launched by the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) to facilitate payments of utility bills through swiping of CNICs.

He stressed the need for utilising all resources to provide solutions to people in their day-to-day problems.

“Five years back when Nadra was launched we faced a lot of criticism both from general public and the media that millions of rupees have been wasted on Nadra.

“But we kept on moving in the same right direction as I had full confidence in Nadra and its team and they have proved today that I was right and today the issuance of 53 million CNICs and 2.7 million Machine Readable Passports has proved that if determination and perseverance is there, one can overcome any obstacle and accomplish difficult tasks,” the president was quoted by Nadra as saying.

“Today our Machine Readable Passport is one of the best travel documents in the world.”