ISLAMABAD, Aug 11: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has stepped up its operation in light of the Election Commission’s directive to issue computerised national identity cards (CNICs) to all eligible voters by October 5.
A spokesman for Nadra said here on Sunday that the production of CNICs by the Fauji Foundation, which was stopped for a short period due to unavailability of material, had recommenced.
The spokesman said that on Friday only the authority produced 83,000 Sindhi language cards, which had been handed over to the Pakistan Post Office for delivery to the applicants. “About 28 million people have submitted forms for computerized cards and the national data warehouse has been populated with data of approximately 22.2 million persons”.
He added the remaining forms were being processed.
“We are operating in a paperless environment, which means that all the data contained in 22.2 million forms has been digitized and made available wherever it is required”, he said.
The spokesman informed that 12.6 million CNICs had been produced and so far 10.2 million applicants had received their cards. He added the authority had received nearly 200,000 rejected cards, which is 1.6 per cent of the total cards produced.
“Nadra considers 2-3 per cent rejection rate as acceptable and rewarding”, he said.
The spokesman said Nadra had also prepared the electoral rolls for the National and provincial assemblies under the supervision of the Election Commission of Pakistan.
“The electoral process of having more than 72 million records followed by printing of more than 26 million pages was carried out by a highly technical and fully accountable indigenously developed system”, he added.
This exercise was not only appreciated by the commission but also by a delegation of the European Union for its in-built transparency and technical excellence.
The Nadra official disclosed that more than 70,000 forms were lost from May to September 2001, mainly due to inadequate controls, corruption and inefficiency at all echelons.
“Nadra is not in a hurry or unhealthy haste for the issuance of identity cards rather it is focusing on the authenticity of the computerized cards to eliminate the menace of bogus and fake cards”, the spokesman said.
He added that despite the capacity of issuing 100,000 cards per day the Nadra preferred to issue error-free cards with authenticity and accuracy in a gradual fashion.
He said the authority was doing its best to ensure that every eligible voter acquires the identity card before election and those who do not have an identity card could get a temporary card from Nadra offices after providing their details.