EC to provide ‘provisional’ national identity cards from next week

The Election Commission will introduce ‘Citizen Identification Information’ services from next week to issue ‘temporary’ identity cards to about 4.7 million voters who do not have national identity cards (NIDs).

NID wing’s chief Brig Gen Sultanuzzaman Md Saleh Uddin confirmed bdnews24.com the EC approved the matter in principle at its Tuesday meeting.

He hoped the election commissioners would clear the documents related to the matter by Thursday.

However, the constitutional body has decided against terming the provisional ID cards ‘temporary’ due to legal complexities.

“The cards will have same features as the NIDs although they will look different,” he told bdnews24.com.

It can be used until the bearer gets a NID.

There are an estimated 96 million voters in Bangladesh. Of them, around 4.7 million, who were included during the last update, are yet to get NIDs.

Another 7.2 million voters are expected to be included during the current update.

Citizens, who are yet to get NIDs despite being included in the voter list, can collect their information from the EC’s website.

The ‘provisional’ ID cards will have a voter’s name, his or her parents’ names, date of birth, address and machine-readable barcodes. 

A voter’s provisional NID will be valid until he or she receives a smart card.

“They won’t have ‘temporary ID cards’ written on them, rather ‘the NID has not been issued’ will be there,” he said.

NID wing chief Saleh Uddin said the law stipulated providing NIDs to all voters.

“We can’t use the word ‘temporary’ as the law does not have provisions for providing such ID cards,” he added.