Smart NID Card: PM to open distribution
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the long-awaited smart national identity cards today at the Osmani Memorial Hall.
The ceremony will begin at 10:30am, said Asaduzzaman Arzu, director (public relations) of the Election Commission (EC) Secretariat.
After inauguration, smart NID cards would be delivered to President Abdul Hamid, the prime minister and members of national cricket team, Arzu told The Daily Star last night.
A day later, Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Kazi Rakibuddin Ahmad will start distribution of these cards at a village of Phulbari upazila in Kurigram.
Simultaneously, the distribution of the cards will start in the two city corporation areas of the capital on Monday.
The first smart NID cards people would get in exchange for their old cards will be free.
“As per our plan, we will first distribute the smart NID cards in the capital, then divisional cities, then district headquarters and lastly in upazila parishad areas,” Azru said.
There are around 10 crore voters in the country and nine crore will get the new cards by December 2017. The new cards have better security measures against forgery.
“We are planning to take up a new project for preparing cards for the rest 1 crore voters and citizens who are not registered voters,” said Arzu.
People will have to go to smart card distribution centres with their old cards. The EC officials then will collect biometric details, impression of 10 fingers and picture of their iris before giving them their smart new cards.
Encrypted data would be stored inside a chip in the cards.
The EC has already published advertisements in newspapers mentioning the names of smart card distribution centres in the capital.
People can get information about smart NID card distribution visiting http://www.nidw.gov.bd/ or contacting EC call centre dialling 105 on their mobile phones.
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