Citizens get a month more to correct information on National IDs

The Election Commission has extended by a month the deadline to rectify information provided by citizens for its database.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 2 Oct 2015, 05:17 AM
Updated : 2 Oct 2015, 05:23 AM

Voters will get until Oct 31 to apply at their local Upazila Election Offices in order to make the changes they want, said a letter issued on Thursday by EC Senior Assistant Secretary Mahfuza Akter.
 
The current number of voters in Bangladesh is over 96.2 million. Of them, 5 million are yet to get their National ID (NID) cards.
 
Meanwhile, the EC will replace the old laminated NIDs with 13-digit identification numbers on new smart cards of 10-digits.
 
They will have around 25 security check options in three stages, EC officials had said.
 
About nine months ago, the EC signed a deal of about Tk 8 billion with the French firm, Oberthur Technologies, to make and distribute the smart cards.
 

But the EC is yet to announce when the new cards will start being issued. 
EC Secretary Sirajul Islam had earlier said the project was in its ‘final stage’ and would be completed as quickly as possible. 
Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad, however, had said the distribution could begin this year.
“This is a huge as well as complicated task. We cannot set a specific date, but it can be said that it will start within this year,” he said last month.