Interior Ministry on Friday informed the sub-committee of National Assembly Standing Committee on Interior that National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has been directed to issue separate license in case of more than one weapons while revalidating old armed license booklets.
Convenor of the committee, MNA Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, presided over the meeting while Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah MNA and officials of Ministry of Interior attended the meeting. The committee expressed concern over the issuance of a single license of more than one weapons on old armed license booklet.
On this Additional Secretary Interior Shahid Hayat said that the Ministry had directed Nadra to issue separate computerised armed license for each weapon, which was earlier mentioned in a single armed license booklet. Shahid said that issuance of arms licenses was in the concurrent list of the constitution and before the 18the amendment Non Prohibited Bore (NPB) arms license were issued by the provincial government with the concurrence of federal government.
However, Prohibited Bore (PB) arms license were issued only with the approval of Prime Minister. After the passage of 18th amendment this function has been devolved to the provinces and the Ministry of Interior did not issue any license after Jun 30,2011, he said. He said that the Ministry had approved the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for the revalidation of arms license on August 17, 2012. Under the SOP, applicant will approach designated Nadra centre for revalidation of license and Nadra centre at each district was processing the applications, he said.
Shahid said that last date of receiving revalidation applications had been extended five times and now last date for receiving the application was April 30,2012. However, extension in last date up to May 31 was under consideration, he added. The committee also expressed reservations over the existing classification or specification of NPB and PB arms devised by interior ministry. On this Additional Secretary Interior said that the ministry would issue revised gazette notification in this regard and the ministry would present its detail in the next meeting.