PESHAWAR: The National Database and Registration Authority and KP Commissionerate Afghan Refugees will begin registering undocumented Afghan citizens across the country on July 15.

Under the plan, one million undocumented Afghans will be registered in the next eight months.

The Nadra will issue the ‘Afghan Citizen Cards’ to registered refugees for unspecified duration.

Currently, a large number of foreign nationals live in Pakistan without legal documents.

Nadra will issue Afghan Citizen Cards to registered refugees

KP CAR director general Waqar Maroof told Dawn that the commissionerate and Nadra were jointly chalking out a plan for the identification of appropriate sites, where the registration centres for undocumented Afghan citizens would be established.

He said 21 registration centres would be set up throughout the country and 11 of them would be in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Mr Maroof said after the selection of sites, Nadra would depute staff members to begin the documentation process on July 15.

He said the Afghan government was on board, while the representatives of the relevant ministry would oversee the process.

The DG said the commissionerate would set up centres in Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Lower Dir, Malakand, Haripur, Mansehra and Dera Ismail Khan.

The relevant officials said around 600,000 undocumented Afghan nationals would be registered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone.

They said the Nadra, Afghan commissionerate and the Afghan refugees and repatriations ministry would jointly carry out the exercise.

The Ministry of State and Frontier Regions (Safron) and Nadra had signed an agreement earlier this month to start the much-delayed registration of undocumented Afghan nationals in the country. The estimated cost of the project is Rs175 million.

The registration of undocumented Afghan nationals is part of the 20 points National Action Plan, which was unveiled in the wake of the Dec 16, 2014, terrorist attack on the Army Public School Peshawar.

The law-enforcement agencies had launched a crackdown on undocumented Afghan nationals.

The countrywide action forced thousands of Afghans to return. Apart from undocumented Afghan nationals, Pakistan currently hosts over one million refugees. The legal status of refugees will expire at the end of Dec this year.

Over 600,000 Afghan nationals returned in 2016 without getting cash assistance and other relief goods from the UN refugee agency.

The officials said the holders of the Afghan Citizen Cards would not be eligible for cash grant being paid to registered refugees on return under the Voluntary Repatriation Programme.

Every registered refugee is paid $200 cash assistance by the UNHCR.

CAR director general Waqar Maroof said the government would maintain accurate databank of undocumented Afghans through the proposed registration process.

He said the proposed card would legalise the stay of unregistered Afghan nationals in the country.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017