Arms licenses: Nadra to help provinces in computerisation

National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) would help the provinces in computerisation of their manual arm licenses to curb lawlessness.
Deputy Chairman Nadra, Tariq Malik on Sunday said the authorities in Punjab, Sindh, AJK and Giglit-Baltistan have expressed their willingness to conduct process of computerisation of arms licenses for them, which has been envisioned to ensure transparency and check use of illegal weapons.
Talking to APP, Tariq Malik said the authority is currently engaged in computerisation of arm licenses issued by the ministry of interior. For this purpose, September 30 has been fixed as last date for submission of forms. The authority has not yet received any request from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan in this regard, he said adding, "we have state of-the-art infrastructure and trained and qualified manpower to develop and manage Arms License Management System and we are ready to provide our services to the provinces".
Responding to a question, Deputy Chairman Nadra said response of people for computerisation of arm licenses is very good and they are visiting the 158 designated centres across the country to get this work done. In order to complete the task during the stipulated time, separate counters have been set up at designated centres to facilitate the license-holders. He said that of the total counters, 13 have been established in Multan, 30 in Quetta, 14 in Lahore, 10 in Sargodha, 32 Peshawar, 24 in Islamabad, 11 in Hyderabad, 10 in Sukkur, 13 in Karachi. He added that some centres have also been set up in other cities under the arms license project.
Although Nadra is processing arms licenses on behalf of the interior ministry, the approval of each license application is the sole discretion of the ministry. Nadra is only processing those applications, which have the approval of the ministry. Original Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs) and original licenses (along with photocopies) are prerequisite for the revalidation along with application form available at centres and the interior ministry.