District committees working to resolve issue of blocked cards

ISLAMABAD: National Assembly Standing Committee on Government Assurances was told on Tuesday that 149.6 million Pakistanis had national identity cards while cards of 155460 persons were blocked by National Database Registration Authority (NADRA).

Director General Operations of NADRA Brig Nasar Ahmed Mir (Retd.)told the committee that most of the blocked cards were of those persons who failed biometric tests, were not cleared by security agencies or courts issued orders against them.

On the instructions of Ministry of Interior, District Level Committees (DLC) were formed to either unblock or cancel cards of the citizens, he said adding these committees unblocked cards of 38,000 citizens while 7000 cards of aliens were cancelled in the country.

He said members of National Assembly could oversee the work being done by the district committees headed by deputy commissioners and comprising members from intelligence agencies.

The members of the committee belonging to erstwhile federally administered areas told that their constituents came to them with complaints of blocked cards.

The committee also took up the issue raised by MNA Ahmad Hussain Dehar through a calling attention notice in the National Assembly regarding maintenance of Pakistan Code by the Ministry of Law and Justice with regard to amendment made in section 182 of Pakistan Penal Code.

An official of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told the committee that no citizen was detained in the province in the name of regional responsibility.

The committee chair Amir Dogar directed that members from erstwhile FATA areas should be invited to the meetings for development activities.

The committee was given assurance by NADRA that shortage of staff and buildings in Khazai and Bazai areas of FATA would be met.

Some members were of the view that the process of verification of a citizen should be made easy while others held the opinion that lowering guard on the issue could endanger security.

The committee was told that a person could present seven types of documents to prove his citizenship, he added.