The decision was taken here on Wednesday after a large number of people could not be entertained by the NADRA officials in Booni even after they spent days in the town along with their family members, mostly children. It may be noted that only those citizens would be counted in the national census who are registered with NADRA. Children less than 18 years of age are though not issued national identity cards, they are allotted CNIC numbers on the basis of which they would be issued the cards when they reach the age of 18. The residents here said those who approached the Booni NADRA office for the registration of their children or renewal of their own computerized national identity cards (CNICs) were kept on waiting for days. As a result, the applicants from far-off areas of village councils Brep, Bang, Meragram No II and Broghil were facing lots of problems and forced to stay in hotels in Booni. Besides, they also have to bear the transportation expenses to Booni and back to their homes. Councillor Taleem Shah here told ChitralToday that for the last more than a year he had been asking the authorities concerned in the district administration to send a NADRA team to the Yarkhun valley to register the people of the area who have not yet get their children registered in the national database. He said a few months back, he had been asked that if there were at least 1,500 applicants a team could be sent to the area. Mr Shah said he and other elected local government members carried out a rough survey in three VCs of Brep, Meragram and Bang and found that there were over 2,700 unregistered people, mostly children. He said for the last over seven years no team from NADRA had visited the Yarkhun valley to register the residents. He said NADRA should send a team to Bang and the local public representatives would call people of all other areas here to facilitate the team, the team would not need going to every village rather can entertain the residents sitting in Bang village. He said the people of Bang would provide all possible facilities, including round-the-clock electricity, to facilitate the NADRA officials. If the government failed to send a NADRA team to the valley, the census exercise would be faulty and thousands of people, including children, would not be added to the national database. He requested Deputy Commissioner Shahab Hamid Yousafzai to order the immediate arrangement of a NADRA team for he far-off Yarkhun valley before the second phase of the ongoing national census started in Chitral on April 25.]]>
As told by the village council representative a population of 2700 souls will remain excluded from the National Census and it will be considered an intentional deprival of the citizens of this remote area from their basic right. NADRA May arrange sending registration team to Yarkhun for registration of the unregistered people. Otherwise the people will be compelled to boycott the Census and the NADRA Office Chitral will be held responsible for the consequences.
It is a big issue and i would say it is the duty of govt to send teams to every far off area to get the citizens registered. if not the census will be a joke and large numbers of people would be left out from census. In turn Chitral’s population would be shown less.
When the govt is unable to make ID cards for its citizens and register children why it is making ID card mandatory for census. if at all national identity cards are necessary, there is no need to hold census as the govt could have gathered the needed information from NADRA. There are people in remote villages where they have never made ID cards.
It is a big issue and NADRA teams should go to all areas as people cannot come to Booni or Chitral town and neither NADRA staff can handle them in such a short time.
thank you.