National Identity Cards to be Replaced with Bio-metric Smart Cards

The Ministry of Home Affairs has announced to implement the bio-metric smart cards in replacement of citizenship card to 1 lakh and 17 thousand Nepali citizens within the January 2018. The bio-metric smart card will include the citizen’s personal information that exists in the present citizenship cards along with other biological information, reports The Annapurna Post. All the data will be collected and stored electronically.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has decided to distribute the bio-metric smart cards to 1 lakh 10 thousand people of the certain district and 7 thousand employees who are working inside Singha-Durbar. The districts where the cards will be distributed is yet to be finalized.

The design for bio-metric smart card has been already been approved by the officials of the government at a meeting conducted on June 8.

National Identity Card Management Centre has already set up a bio-metric card processing department that will be preparing all the necessary hardware and software supplies.

Uddhav Prasad Timilsina, the Executive Director of National Identity Card Management Centre said, “An online registration system will be made for registering the card. Department of Passports will be collaborating with us for adding the required information to the card. A French company has been selected from the international bidding process for the project and is funded by Asian Development Bank.”