The election commission is expecting to complete the issuance of smart national identity (NID) cards for all by the end of 2021.
The Identification System for Enhancing Access to Service (IDEA) and Director General of the National Identity Registration (NID) wing of the Election Commission (EC) Brigadier General Saidul Islam told Bangladesh Post, “Earlier, smart NID cards used to come from abroad. Now we are producing the cards with our own capacity. We are producing some 25 to 30 lakhs cards per month.”
He also said, “The World Bank used to give the fund for smart NID cards earlier, now we are getting it from the government. The money has been taken into consideration for the new project. If the project gets nod we will be able to hand over smart NID cards to everyone by 2021.”
He mentioned that the production of smart NID cards is ongoing but bit slowly due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He further said, “We have already installed NID appointment software. We will activate it in every upazila gradually to provide more NID cards. It will take some more time to get back the normal scenario of NID card distribution as we have witnessed the deadly coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, there is also a lack of manpower and technical support. But we are working hard to get over such limitations.”
The total number of citizens registered in the NID database server till March 2 this year is 11 crore 21 lakh 69 thousand 818. The number of voters is 10 crore 98 lakh 18 thousand 817. The remaining 23 lakh 51 thousand 1 voters have not been included in the list yet.
Earlier, a five-year ‘Identification System for Enhancing Access to Service’ (IDEA) project was taken up with World Bank (WB) funding to provide citizens with high quality of modern national identity cards (smart NID cards).
Former Election Commissioner Brigadier General (Retd) M SakhawatHossain told Bangladesh Post, “100 percent NID card distribution should have been done in due time. But, unfortunately it didn’t happen. There might be some internal problems.”
Earlier in June, the Election Commission (EC) has extended the tenure of all kinds of temporary national identity (NID) cards for an indefinite period as it could not provide smart NID cards.
Moreover, the temporary NID card holders can avail further services free of cost visiting nidw.gov.bd.