LANDI KOTAL/KHAR: A door-to-door campaign for verification of newly-issued computerised national identity cards (CNICs) is underway in the Khyber Agency and Bajaur Agency for revision of electoral lists for 2018 general elections.

Officials of the election commission in Khyber Agency said that the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) had provided them with a list of 122,332 persons who had acquired their new CNICs after the May 2013 general elections.

They said that a total of 529 verification officials, including 319 for Bara, 89 for Jamrud and 141 for Landi Kotal, were engaged in the campaign in their respective areas since Aug 10.

Almost all the verification officials (VOs) were engaged from the education department and each of them would be given Rs7,000 as stipend after the completion of their task on Aug 29.

Over 120,000 people get CNICs after 2013 polls in Khyber

In addition, services of 11 additional registration officers have also been acquired to overlook the entire verification process of CNICs.

Pervaiz Iqbal, the agency election commissioner, said that alongside verification of new CNICs, the VOs would also delete the names of those from the previous voters list who had died after May 2013.

“Voters lists would be displayed at prominent places in all the three tehsils for public and every aspiring voter would be issued three forms for entry of his name, transfer of vote, deletion and correction of name and address if they so desired,” he explained.

He said that the verified CNICs and the revised voter list would then be handed over to Nadra for data entry into their national record and later for compilation of the final voters list at national level.

In Khar, over 90,000 new voters have been registered in electoral rolls after the 2013 general elections in Bajaur Agency, said officials of Election Commission of Pakistan during a meeting with representatives of political parties here on Wednesday.

The meeting was chaired by agency election commissioner Mohammad Ishaq which was attended by representatives of political and religious parties and officials of education department.

Mr Ishaq briefed the participants about the ongoing door-to-door verification process of voters in the agency.

He said that like other parts of the country, the exercise to verify and induct new voters had also been started in Bajaur Agency on Aug 10 and it would continue till 29th of this month.

He said that a total of 93,844 new voters had been registered in the electoral rolls across the agency since 2013 general elections.

He said that names of only 228 people in the agency who had either died or become disqualified on various counts had been removed from the electoral rolls after 2013 elections.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2016