News Desk : dhakamirror.com
The Election Commission has moved to ease the hassle for people in correcting information on National ID Cards.
EC officials prepared a draft Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) which will make it easier for fixing NID corrections. It has re-designated officers’ jobs and proposed increasing the powers of field officers of the EC to correct NID information.
The SOP also made the jobs of officials specific.
The draft SOP was placed before a meeting of election commissioners chaired by Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal yesterday.
“The meeting in principle approved the SOP, and they would finalise it after holding further discussions,” NID Wing Director General A K M Humayun Kabir said after the meeting.
Earlier in late May, the draft of the SOP was finalised proposing 20 additional regional officers should be given the authority to categorise the applications for correcting NID cards. At present, the process is done centrally.
The draft of the SOP also proposed that district election officers will be able to correct the mistakes of names of parents of NID card holders. Currently, regional election officers are authorised to bring such changes.
District election officers will be able to take decisions about applications seeking a change of date of birth for a maximum of seven years, while additional district election officers will be able to settle applications seeking a change of date of birth for a maximum of five years.
Additional district election officers will be able to take decisions about applications regarding change of marital status, names of spouses as well as religion. Till now, additional district election officers had no authority regarding the correction of NID cards.
The SOP proposed that the regional election officer will be able to take decisions regarding applications seeking a change of the full name of the national identity card holder. Currently, the Director General of the NID wing can take such a decision.
