The shortage of equipment for taking biometric details of voters has slowed down the distribution of the new Smart National Identity (NID) cards, a top Election Commission (EC) official told The Independent yesterday.
“The distribution of smart cards is going on slowly because of the shortage of equipment necessary for taking pictures of iris and fingerprint impressions. We want to accelerate the process,” EC secretary Muhammad Abdullah said. At present, the commission is using rented machines for the distribution of smart cards in the Dhaka metropolitan area.
“Going by the present rate, it would take about three more months to complete the process,” Abdullah said.
He also said that the EC has made arrangements with the World Bank (WB) for obtaining around 4,000 machines to expedite the distribution of cards from the central to the upazila levels. “We hope to get the new machines within two months,” he added.
EC sources said the new machines would also help to expand the process of card distribution across the country.
The commission has signed an agreement with the French company Oberthur Technology for manufacturing and distributing nine crore smart cards at a cost of Tk. 796.27 crore.
The EC had started distributing the highly secured smart cards after replacing the existing NID cards on October 2, 2016. Initially, the cards were distributed to around 50 lakh voters living in areas under the two city corporations of Dhaka.
On March 5 this year, the EC started distributing the cards in the Dhaka metropolitan Area. The process will continue till June 18.
Following Dhaka, the EC is also going to distribute the new smart cards in the Chittagong metropolitan area for the first time today.
EC sources said chief election commissioner KM Nurul Huda would inaugurate the card distribution programme at the Chittagong Circuit House at 11am.
The schedule for the distribution of the cards in all police station areas in Chittagong would be published in local newspapers, they added.
The sources, however, said the distribution of the cards in Chittagong was coming after six months of the inaugural run in Dhaka. This was pretty late as the commission has to complete the distribution of around nine crore cards by December 2017, they added.
The citizens who were registered as voters by 2014 would get the smart cards gradually. But those registered in 2015 would get them later, EC sources said.
The project for distribution of the new cards would end in December 2017 and the authorities concerned would later decide on how to give out the cards.