LAHORE, Sept 27: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has launched a mobile SMS service in collaboration with Pakistan Telecommunications Authority to lodge complaints and ascertain a person’s name in the beneficiary list of Watan Card project.

Nadra Deputy Chairman Tariq Malik said on Monday the SMS service would enable the local authorities to check the eligibility of the applicant for Watan Card by simply sending his or her computerised national identity card number to the designated short code - 9888.

In response, a text message would be sent from the authority’s central server confirming the CNIC’s existence in the beneficiary list. “For complaints’ redressal, a text message containing two CNICs pertaining to the same area i.e. CNIC of a beneficiary and of the complainant, will have to be sent on the designated short code in order to launch a complaint.

We have people complaining that they live close by or in neighborhood, and one of them is declared as beneficiary but the other is not considered (for the benefit) by the provincial governments,” Mr Malik said.

Tariq Malik further said the authority had distributed Watan Cards among 117,587 families from its 25 distribution centres in Sindh and Punjab so far.

“We have processed 97,000 fresh and duplicate CNICs free of cost using its fleet of 220 mobile registration vans moving around 3,200 flood relief camps.”