The inauguration of the new offices of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to be built in Lahore in the form of a mega centre has become a dream despite being under construction for two and a half years and costing taxpayers somewhere between Rs 450 and 500 million.
The mega centre which has furniture and computers worth Rs 120 million is yet to issue a single identity card. Four inauguration dates have been announced to date but none of the dates delivered on their promise. The NADRA centre seems to have become yet another unfortunate case of politicisation instead of public service.
The federal government began considering the mega centre some three years ago, keeping in view NADRA’s growing problems in dealing with an ever increasing population.
According to sources, the authority immediately sought a debilitated building on Davis Road near the American consulate and the governor’s house, paying a year’s rent in advance, and eventually building new offices at the site with a plan to relocate NADRA offices from Baghpura, Swami Nagar Misri Shah, Ravi Road, Shafiqabad, and Abbott Road, Qila Gujjar, to the new building.
However, the NADRA office at Baghbanpura was shut down prematurely, directing citizens from northern Lahore to the already overburdened office on Abbott Road for the past one and a half month.
A union of NADRA employees has filed complaints with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and other authorities against the blatant corruption and fund embezzlement ongoing in regards to the mega centre and has also identified those responsible in their complaints.
The authorities, however, seem not to care and have simply swept the matter under the rug.
