Minister for Interior and Narcotics Control Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Tuesday said that billions of rupees are being spent on NADRA Mega Centres and Executive Passport Offices to facilitate the general public in avoiding long queues at existing facilities.
He was talking to the media-persons at a ceremony held here in connection with the launch of National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Mega Centre at Lahore and Executive Passports Offices (EPO) in Sargodha and Faisalabad.
The minister said the mega centre in Lahore had 48 counters and was equipped with modern facilities to facilitate applicants for the Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs).
The mega centre, which will remain open for 24 hours, has a seating capacity of 400 people and would process 3,500 applications every day, he said. He added that four special counters have been set up to facilitate old citizens.
He said that apart from other areas of the city, the residents of Data Ganj Bakhsh Town, Ravi Town and Shalimar Town would benefit from this centre. Upto 60 applications would be processed daily at the EPO Sargodha and up to 80 would be processed at Faisalabad office.
Answering a question, he said that NADRA has spent its self-generated money on building executive passport offices and NADRA offices.
The minister said that numerous measures have been adopted to provide better services to the people. He added that he had already inaugurated Mega Centres of NADRA at Islamabad and Karachi which were workin throughout the day for the benefit of the people.
Chaudhry Nisar said that nine mega centres are under-construction in different cities of the country.
He said that in 2013, only 88 passport offices were providing services while the present government has established 84 more passport centres to cover almost every district of the country, including the far flung districts.
He said that a total of 557 NADRA centres were operational in the country and that the Ministry of Interior was going to introduce a new concept in collaboration with Post Office for the renewal, modification and reprint of identity cards.
As a pilot project, 10 post offices would be used for the renewal of the identity cards in the next two months and later, the network would be expanded to 1500 post offices across the country. In the future, project of e-passport would be started, he added.
More than 30,000 passports, the minister said, and 200,000 CNICS were blocked as part of the security measures taken in the country.
The minister said that tens of thousands of cases of fake CNICs were identified and that 3600 persons surrendered their identity cards after a campaign run by the ministry on media, he added.
He said about 175,000 CNICs have been cancelled; however, citizens could appeal against the cancellation.
He said that in future, in any case where any doubt on the identity of a citizen would be raised, a notice will be issued before the card will be cancelled.
He said that action will be taken against people who would possess multiple identity cards.
