THE Nadra website says that the new Family Registration Certificate (FRC) will be issued the same day. My daughter went with my son to the Nadra Registration Centre, Executive SRHQ, at Awami Markaz, Karachi, to get new FRC.

On reaching the counter she was told that the person who deals with it had not come and that she should come next day. The next day she went again to find that the person concerned was not present, but the person who had told her to come the next day did entertain her.

She was informed that the Nadra database was incomplete and her father’s (mine) and my son’s CNICs were not in the system and that they could not issue an FRC to my daughter. She said that our family was very particular and entered all the information from ‘form B’ to get CNICs. Instead, he said the main database is in Islamabad and that they cannot access it to help her.

She asked for the solution to which he said she should make chip-based CNIC which will have all the CNIC numbers of the whole family. He said the FRC could be issued immediately when this chip-based CNIC will be ready.

When she asked for the advantage of chip-based CNIC, he said there would not be any visa fee if one had to travel abroad. She asked if she wanted to travel abroad, would the embassies charge a fee? On this he did not say anything as he was not sure.

She was unnecessarily charged Rs1,500 for this new card for the simple fact that our family data was not available with the Nadra database.

Surprisingly, she was told to get re-verified the application for her new chip-based CNIC by any first class government officer.

This was a useless activity as she already has a CNIC which was earlier verified by a similar government official and accepted/issued by the government.

After wasting three to four days, we applied for a new chip-based CNIC. I and my wife (in our 70s) collected the new chip-based CNICs from the same office after a few days. We had applied for the FRC hoping that all the information provided by us would be reflective. It must be a piece of cake for them to issue an FRC [family tree].

But alas, again after depositing Rs1,000 (FRC fee) and sitting for a couple of hours, we were told by the counter staff to bring CNIC numbers of our other family members so that they could be incorporated into the FRC.

The making of the new chip-based CNICs went in vain. The counter staff was blunt and told us that Nadra data was scattered and was in Islamabad and that they did not have access to it.

I pleaded the counter staff that this was our fifth or sixth visit to the Nadra office for the issuance of FRC and that they should help us, but they refused, asking us to bring CNIC numbers of our family members.

My ailing daughter is going to have replacement of kidneys at SIUT and my son (whose kidney has matched) is donating his kidney. But SIUT needs proof that my son is the brother of my daughter and needs family tree from Nadra.

The authorities concerned are requested to help us in this matter as we face a race against time. We have no more time to waste because of poor Nadra working.

DR SALEEM SIDDIQI
Karachi