The Election Commission (EC) has decided to send Short Message Service (SMS) to the people for delivering smart national identity (NID) cards.
It is learned that this decision was taken at a recent monthly coordination meeting of the EC. It has been mentioned that due to the current situation, it is difficult to carry out mass activities following the hygiene rules.
Moreover, people won’t have to throng the EC office for collecting their smart NID cards. Only a specific number of people will go and collect their NID cards after getting SMS.
According to the EC officials, EC stopped the distribution of smart cards immediately after the government’s announcement of a general holiday since March.
At present the commission has also decided to start the distribution of smart cards on a limited scale after receiving directions from the government to run offices.
Senior Secretary of EC Md. Alamgir directed the National Identity Registration Wing to review the matter.
Talking to Bangladesh Post the official said that people can collect information, enroll and obtain their smart NID cards after meeting the mandatory requirements. All information are available at the website of EC.
“In this case, distribution of smart cards has to be started in compliance with the hygiene rules in a limited manner. At the same time, smart cards can be distributed among a small number of people by sending SMS to their mobile phones to avoid mass gathering,” he added.
In this regard, the director of the NID Wing Abdul Baten said, “We haven’t stopped any activities except distribution of smart cards. We provided services even when many offices were closed due to the coronavirus pandemics.”
“Currently all services are available online. Smart card distribution is also planned to start on a limited scale. The service will be launched soon,” he added.
The EC has so far sent 6 crore 1 lakh smart cards to upazila level. A total of 5 crore 7 lakh 90 thousand cards have been distributed.
Besides, works are underway to insert information in 1 crore 2 lakh new cards. In 2020, 55 lakh 79 thousand 30 new voters have been added to the list hitherto.
As a result total number of registered voters in the country is 10 crore 98 lakh 19 thousand 112.
