The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has won the Nigeria's civil registration project by beating the international IT firms from USA, UK, Germany and India in the bid, APP learnt here on Thursday. The Nigerian government invited IT firms from across the world for execution of its civil registration project. Nadra participated in the bid and remained the lowest bidder.
It is pertinent to mention here that Nadra is already executing the Sudan's civil registration project and has completed its first phase. In addition to this, the Authority is also executing computerised driving license project in Bangladesh, said the Deputy Chairman of Nadra Tariq Malik.
He said the Authority has also participated in bids for civil registration projects in Kenya, Fiji and Sri Lanka. Malik said that in recognition of Nadra's services for registration of Afghan refugees, the UNCHR has hinted at using the Nadra's software for registration of refugees anywhere in the world. He further informed that Nadra developed software for registration of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) of Malakand division in a record time of 36 hours only.
The Deputy Chairman said that Nadra has a large database of about 100 million people and so far it has issued 71.5 million CNICs including 43.2 million male and 28.3 million female CNICs. He informed that as many as 13.750 million people get free of cost CNICs since the scheme was announced by the government. Malik said that due to Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) the authority observed a tremendous growth in registration of females.
He said presently, the authority is registering 66 females daily out of 100 while in past the female registration ratio was quite low. He said Nadra has established eight National Swift Registration Centres (NSRCs) in different districts comprising female Nadra staff to register maximum females.
In addition to this, he said separate female counters have also been set up for in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps for registering the female IDPs. Malik added that so far 19,7000 IDPs have been registered with Nadra at camps only.