Govt set last date for old manual ID Cards as December 31

Govt set last date for old manual ID Cards as December 31

--Old Cards will no longer remain valid after due date

 

ISLAMABAD   The federal government has announced that the old manual identity cards will no longer remain valid after December 31 this year.

 

This was stated by Chairman NADRA Brig (Retd) Saleem Ahmed Moeen while briefing the media persons here Thursday.

 

He said that so far over 30 million citizens have applied for computerized national identity cards while around 29 million cards have been produced out of which approximately 28 million applicants have received their cards.

 

The Chairman said that since normal card issuance procedure takes around one month, computerized NIC seekers must file their applications before December 1, 2003 to get their cards made before the cut off date.

 

The NADRA chief said that in order to facilitate the applicants NADRA has established 122 Swift Registration centers throughout the country. The task, Chairman said was given by the interior ministry to provide all possible convenience to the people of Pakistan treating each of them as a VIP customer.

 

The Chairman said that these Swift Registration Centers are set up to process and deliver error-free computerized national identity cards to the applicants within shortest possible time. He said that a total of 200 swift centers are planned by the year end.

 

He advised the computerized cards seekers to get a computerized receipt from NADRA offices in case they are submitting a manually written forms. All necessary requirements have been fulfilled in this regard and all NADRA offices at district level are equipped with technical devices.

 

Comprehensive and proper delivery mechanism is also being evolved to ensure prompt delivery of identity cards at the distribution centers being established in each district throughout the country, he said.

 

The most prominent contribution of the authority is that it has explored new avenues of IT in government sector. The authority has laid a foundation stone of modern, updated and high tech infrastructure.

 

He said at these Swift Registration Centers, applicants are being provided all facilities under one roof including filling of forms, photographs, electronic figure prints and scanning of signatures by the center, eliminating the manual system of forms submission.

 

Chairman said that Mobile Swift Registration Units have been designed and made operative recently to cater to the citizens of remote areas specially those who do not have enough means to travel to cities for getting the computerized identity cards made. He mentioned that 27 mobile units will be operative by September 2003 where as 50 such units are planned to be in the field by June 2004.