EC to lose NID job to home ministry
The government is going to give the job of issuing national identity (NID) cards to the home ministry, taking it away from the Election Commission which has been doing it since 2006.
Yesterday, the cabinet approved in principle the draft of the National Identity Registration Act-2022 on conditions that some of its provisions would be reviewed and some sections of the existing law would be added to it unchanged.
"The concept of NID came from the issuance of voter ID… Initially, NID was related to elections. It was later made mandatory for availing other services," said Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, he said as other services are being offered based on the NID, it has now become necessary to keep the NID system under the supervision of the government instead of the EC.
"The decision was made to bring the national identity registration under the Security Services Division, [of the home ministry] which deals with passports," said the cabinet secretary.
The Security Services Division placed the bill before the cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
There are 32 sections in the existing law. However, some of them have been left out of the proposed act, said Anwarul.
He said a unique identity will be issued to each citizen. Once the NID job is transferred to the Security Services Division, a unique ID number will be issued to each newborn at the time of birth, which will be their NID numbers, he added.
According to the cabinet secretary, it may take another two to three years to start issuing IDs to newborns.
He said fingerprints and iris scans will be collected from the newborns for the issuance of NID and those will be updated from time to time.
The cabinet yesterday asked the Legislative Division of the law ministry to review the draft law and place it again before the cabinet after adding a few provisions, if needed.
Replying to a question, the cabinet secretary said the EC could use the NID of Security Services Division for preparing voter ID cards or it can develop its own mechanism.
Anwarul said there will be interoperability between the systems of different government organisations to use NID data from the Security Services Division. "It will not be open to all… only some selected organisations will get access to the data."
Currently, the Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration under the Local Government Division issues birth and death certificates.
Asked what would happen to the registrar general's office after the NID service job is given to the home ministry, the cabinet secretary said the officials concerned would sit to find a solution.
The environment, forest and climate change ministry placed the draft of the National Adaptation Plan (2023-2050) before the cabinet, incorporating 90 high priorities and 23 medium priorities in it to address climate change.
But the cabinet sent back the draft saying that it needed changes, said Anwarul.
The meeting also approved the draft of a bilateral agreement on direct flight operation between Bangladesh and Brunei.
The cabinet endorsed a proposal, placed by the foreign ministry, for Bangladesh's joining the Global Methane Pledge.
Anwarul said 50 countries have so far signed the pledge.
The Global Methane Pledge is a commitment to take voluntary actions to contribute to a collective effort to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30 percent from 2020 levels by 2030.
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