ISLAMABAD: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has formed a special cell to continuously coordinate with all provincial disaster management authorities and the cabinet division to immediately respond to an emergency in the shortest possible time.

According to a Nadra press release issued here, Nadra’s chairman Tariq Malik said that with over 534 registration centres, 236 registration vehicles, 74 semi-mobile registration units and over 200 special centres manned by trained staff, Nadra was now fully prepared to immediately respond to the government’s call in an hour of need.

Nadra has been continuously supporting the government in conducting relief and rehabilitation activities for the past seven years.

Since 2005, the organisation has utilised its own resources and used latest technology in executing various successful cash transfer programmes of the government which include Citizen Damage Compensation Programme (Support for 1.7 million flood-affected families in Phase I and for estimated 1.2 million households in Phase II), Basic Income Support Programme (BISP) for IDPs (support for over 316,000 IDPs of Swat and Malakand), Pakistan Card (support to over 1.2 million rain/flood-affected families of Sindh), IDP Project (support to over 378,000 Internally Displaced Population of Swat/Malakand and 42,000 IDPs of South Waziristan) and Hunza IDP Project (support of Rs600,000 to 457 affected families of Attabad Lake).

Mr Malik said that transparency in cash transfer programme in any social development sector among beneficiaries of any kind of disaster was the most difficult challenge which Nadra had met successfully.

For past seven years, he said, the dedication and high standards set by Nadra had not only resulted in successful identification, registration through biometric verification of over 8.2 million beneficiaries for various support initiatives of the government, but also aided in transparent disbursement of over Rs120 billion in the shortest possible time, he said.

“These achievements have not only gained international recognition for the best use of technology in achieving transparency but have also been adopted by international donor agencies, including the World Bank, as the best case studies for cash transfer programmes for replication throughout the world,” the Nadra chairman said.—APP