Daily Times

Chairman National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Tarik Malik on Wednesday said that the authority has planned to give absolute nationality to the foreigners who have been living here for seven years permanently. He was addressing here at the 8th National Privacy Conference organized by a local NGO. On the occasion, the Chairman said that the authority made this strategy in joint consultation with the Ministry of Interior, adding that all other legal and administrative parameters in this regard are yet under discussion.

He also expressed the confidence of developing an e-voting system for overseas Pakistanis, but that would only be done after the political parties show consensus over it. Later, in an interview with Voice of America Tarik Malik said that it was the right time to implement the law granting voting rights to overseas Pakistanis.

“We are waiting for two things, one is the grant of responsibility by the Election Commission to us and secondly consensus of all political parties that this e-voting system was acceptable to them,” he added. Pakistan’s government recently approved a legislation allowing the overseas Pakistanis to exercise the right to vote amid strong protest by the mainstream opposition parties in the Parliament. Talik Malik said that NADRA has the data of expatriates and according to that 6.5 million people would be eligible to cast their votes out of 8.6 million overseas Pakistanis.

He also spoke about the reforms and initiatives taken by Nadra related to digitalization of the government departments, while the database authority has recently developed a system Digital Power of Attorney (DPOA) which would provide a Power of Attorney certificate to a person through video conferencing.

He added that around 10,000 fake ID cards were identified in the Nadra system and 107 employees involved in this malpractice have been terminated from service.

Tarik Malik said that smart identity cards have been issued to 1.7 million registered Afghan refugees in the country and it has facilitated them to get their children admitted in schools, open bank accounts etc. Regarding those Afghans nationals who wanted to come to Pakistan a relaxed visa regime has been implemented allowing them to get an online visa within 24 hours.