Daily Times

Minister for Parliamentary Services and Law and Justice, Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar on Friday apprised the Upper House of the Parliament that the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) would cover almost 11,777 union councils (UCs) across the country to enhance its population data registration footprint at the grassroots level.

The Minister was responding to the question of Senator Fawia Arshad during the second meeting of the 340th session of the Senate.

Senator Tarar said the NADRA?s UC level initiative would be rolled out across the country, whereas initially 1150 UCs have been selected horizontally starting from the mega urban centers of the country covering every nook and corner and it would not be restricted to the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT).

He added that there was a total of 11,777 UCs in the country and within 2.5 years small NADRA Centers would be established providing three main facilities of child registration certificate (CRC) ? Form B, Cancellation of NIC due to death (CD), and NIC reprint or lost. He added that NADRA had introduced motorbike teams to cater for disabled and elderly individuals and some 16,700 cases were addressed by those NADRA teams.

Senator Azam Nazeer Tarar, responding to a supplementary query of a Senator, explained that the mobile kit comprised of a camera stand, laptop, biometric and other required paraphernalia for facilitating elderly and specially-abled who were mostly unable to reach offices and mobile vans for their data registration.

He added that the mobile team initiative was being piloted in many districts, whereas urban areas with larger population were targeted first on priority and then the semi urban areas including hard areas would be targeted. Earlier, Senator Fawzia Arshad, while making a supplementary query on her question, said the NADRA had 34 months plan to start initiative in various UCs across the country with three basic facilities of B Form certificate, lost and damaged CNIC and others. ?Pakistan has 166 districts and NADRA only has 45 vans to address these districts which is insufficient. We need to have NADRA at the UC level to ensure strict data registration, monitoring of foreign nationals residing in different parts of the country to control illicit activities otherwise it will bring a bad name to the country in case of any untoward situation,? she added.

Senator Danesh Kumar in his supplementary question said that the NADRA was covering 1,150 UCs out of 11,777 UCs and the deadline for 2.5 years would help achieve the target.

He also inquired about the areas selected for the mobile teams of NADRA.