KARACHI, June 4: One out of 100 applications for computerised national identity cards is based on fake documents and, though such applications are detected by the National Database and Registration Authority, the applicants are seldom brought to book, it is learnt on Monday.

The Nadra chairman, Saleem Moeen, told newsmen that around 24,000 people applied for CNICs all over the country every day. He said between 200 and 250 of them were frauds and their applications were caught by the system. So far, over 160,000 such fake applicants had been detected and denied cards and over 22,000 FIRs had been registered.

He said that earlier there was no specific law under which such people could be tried and punished but a few weeks back an ordinance had been promulgated amending the Nadra law and now applying for a CNIC on fake documents had been made a non-bailable offence with up to seven years of imprisonment. Soon action would be initiated against the erring applicants under this law, he added.

The Nadra chief said that the authority had the capacity to issue 65,000 CNICs daily but only around 24,000 people applied for the cards. “As a result, out of over 358 swift centres and 198 mobile units around 106 centres were underutilised and were running at a loss, but even these were not being shut down.”

He said that currently the country’s population was around 156 million out of which approximately 70 million were adults and so far Nadra had issued over 57 million CNICs, showing more than 80 per cent people had identity cards. However, in many areas women were not allowed to make new CNICs, he said. Citing an example, he said that approximately 80 per cent of males in FATA had CNICs while only around 17 per cent of their female counterparts had CNICs.

Responding to a question regarding issuance of fake passports to Afghan nationals, many of whom were caught while returning from Haj at airports, he said that Nadra had identified over 28,000 people whose cards could not be verified and probably some of them had been issued passports by the Haj Directorate, he said and added that none of those Afghans caught had Nadra verified identity cards.

He said that Nadra had started birth registration in over 2,000 union councils across the country and all the districts in Sindh, but it was yet to be started in Karachi, which being the largest urban centre should have been the pioneer in this process. The city nazim had not given his consent, he said, adding that dialogue was under way and hopefully the registration process would start here soon

The Nadra chief said that besides regular customers like banks between 20,000 and 25,000 people, while purchasing property, came to Nadra offices daily to get the CNICs of the sellers or buyers verified to avoid frauds.

The Nadra charged Rs20 per verification. However, unfortunately, the passport office, which was one of the largest customers availing the facility on a daily basis, had not paid a single penny so far and still Nadra had verified over 3.7 million CNICs to which machine readable passports had been issued, he said.

He said that Nadra charged Rs75 for issuing a new CNIC, but it spent over Rs210 per card, while it had to spend between Rs1,500 and Rs2,500 to block a fake application for CNIC.

He said that the Nadra kiosks, launched a few months back, to collect utility bills had been a success all over the country, except in Karachi. Over Rs280 million was collected through these kiosks last month and a trend of an increase of Rs50 million was seen in the past few months. However, some changes had been introduced in the city and hopefully it would succeed now. Now unemployed youth were being given these kiosks.

Mr Moeen said that Nadra did not receive any funds from the government and was a self-sustaining organisation having over 12,100 employees and annually generating approximately Rs3 billion all of which was spent to keep the organisation updated in technology, owing to which it was competing on the international level and had recently won a contract from Kenya – despite contenders even from the western countries -- to issue driving licences there.