EC losing its power to register national identities

After a long discussion, the cabinet has given final approval to the draft of the National Identity Registration Act-2023. As a result, the Election Commission (EC) is losing its power to register national identities. If the new law is passed by the National Assembly, the National Identity Card (NID) will be issued by the Registrar‍‍`s Office under the Security Services Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs. In that case the EC will list voters above 18 years only.

The draft law was given final approval in the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today. The cabinet meeting was held at the Prime Minister‍‍`s office. Later in the afternoon, the Cabinet Secretary Md. Mahbub Hossain announced the decision of the meeting in a press conference at the Secretariat.

Earlier on October 10 last year, the draft National Identity Registration Act was approved by the cabinet.

Mahbub Hossain said, under the proposed law, the national identity registration program will now be conducted through the security service department of the Ministry of Home Affairs. There will be a registrar‍‍`s office for this. The head of this office will be the Registrar. One of its features is that any citizen will get a citizen certificate or a number immediately after birth. This number will remain unchanged. Once a citizen gets this number, no other number is required for identification.

In response to the questions of the journalists, the Cabinet Secretary said that the information related to national identity registration will be transferred from the EC to the new registrar‍‍`s office. In response to another question, he said, those who have NIDs now, they will remain effective or ongoing. As per current rules, only those 18 years and above can do NID. In the proposed law, NID can be done at any age.

The cabinet secretary said that this initiative has been taken to reduce the suffering. He said, the goal is to gradually keep all the information in this one identity number.

Cabinet Secretary Mahbub Hossain said that after the law is passed, the activities of the National Identity Registrar will be conducted through the office of the new registrar from the date set by the government.