The new format will include in its 8 cm by 11cm space basic information in English -- card number, full name, date of birth (in AD), place of birth, permanent address and gender -- about the card-holder. An immediate effect will be that things will become easier for Nepali citizens visiting India where they are said to have faced problems due to confusion created by the details in Nepali.
Besides, after being connected to the central database through a computerized network, the cards will facilitate groundwork for introducing the National Identity (NID) card as mentioned in the government´s budget statement this year.
The Home Ministry has already dispatched the new cards to all the districts together with the computer software for printing the cards and recording their distribution. According to officials, only the three districts of the capital Valley and Kavre will follow the computerized system to begin with although the plan is to cover 45 districts initially.
"As staff are yet to be trained in the use of this unicode and handling of the software, the computerized system will take some more months before it is extended nationwide," said Prahlad Pokhrel, under-secretary at the Management Section.
The Home Ministry plans to computerize the system and link the records to the regional and central database within three years, officials said.
A notice was published in the government gazette on August 3 concerning the new design approved for the citizenship card and related changes in the four annexes to the Citizenship Regulations, 2009.
Preparations for NID card
In accordance with the announcement made through the budget statement on preparations for introducing the NID card, the government has formed an internal committee to do a study.
The committee headed by Secretary Lila Mani Paudel is said to have been pondering over the mechanism--a separate agency under the Home Ministry -- and modalities for the NID card. "The committee is looking into two options--Smart Card and Bar-code," an official said.
Both types are machine-readable but the Smart Card is less likely to be chosen because of its initial high cost, officials said.
Officials said the NID card, with its wider coverage of information about the card holder, will replace citizenship cards now in general use. NID card is another e-governance venture undertaken by the government which is facing a formidable challenge in introducing machine-readable passports, with their global acceptability, by 2010.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Sundar Khanal
Quelle/Source: Republica, 05.11.2009
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