Birth certificate must for NID

Birth certificates are being made mandatory for getting National Identity (NID) Cards.

Henceforth, MPs, like gazetted officers, would be able to attest the document.

An amendment to the law to make this possible has already been proposed to the law ministry.

Election Commission (EC) officials said there would be no difference between the proposed registration form and the existing one, but the changed form would be used the next time the voter list is upgraded.

The new form would require an applicant to submit attested copies of his/her birth registration certificate, Primary School Certificate/ Junior School Certificate/ Secondary School Certificate equivalent along with the application.

MPs, local public representatives, gazetted officers, and heads of secondary and higher secondary institutes can attest the certificates.

If a man has more than one wife, their names and NID numbers must be tagged in a separate sheet.

The new form also has room for stating any disability such as autism or Down Syndrome a voter may have to report.

The ‘National Identity Registration (Amendment) Bill-2013’ was passed last year to give ID cards to all citizens.

But the EC is yet to begin gathering information about those less than 18 years old.

The EC provided voters with NID cards while preparing photo-based voter list for the 2008 national elections.

Monir Hossain, district election and registration officer, said: “There are many application forms like for inclusion of voters, placement, correction and cancellation of names. In some cases the form is also needed to be authenticated along with the attestation of related papers.”

Voter list upgrading on

According to the EC, work of upgrading the voters’ list has been completed in 144 Upazilas, raising the number of voters to 1.32 million.

The highest number of voters registered was in Sylhet’s Jaintapur and the lowest in Bagerhat Sadar Upazila.

The second phase of upgrading is currently under way in 213 Upazilas.

The third phase will involve 120 Upazilas including the Dhaka metropolitan region.

The EC began revising the voters’ list from May 15 to include those who are 18 or above. Another 4.6 million people are expected to be added on as new voters at the end of the exercise.

There are 90.19 million voters as per the existing list.