New policy in works for refugees’ registration

Afghan refugees hold celebratory demonstrations in front of KPC

KARACHI: A joint working committee group is expected to chalk out a policy regarding the registration of Afghan and Bangladeshi residents of the city. This initiative has been brought about after Imran Khan, in his maiden speech to Karachi, highlighted the refugee issue.

The federal interior ministry is expected to forward to the National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA), a new policy regarding the registration process for the refugees. NADRA is expected to come up with a registration process for the refugees once the federal policy has been communicated from the interior ministry, sources said.  According to the NADRA records, the country has 140,000 registered refugees with work permits while there are still hundreds of thousands of unregistered refugees who want to get registered.

The announcement has brought relief to Afghan refugees who held celebratory demonstrations in front of Karachi Press Club (KPC) on Sunday.

Due to the national identity card restriction policy, registrations of about 58,000 people were cancelled in a span of six months in 2016. The cancelled registrations represent a large number of people who have been settled in the country for decades.

After the policy was applied, NADRA declared that the data of 100 million Pakistanis were clear. A crackdown against NADRA staffers, who were involved in the issuance of fake identity cards, led to the arrests of about two dozen officers by investigation agencies.

Sources say that in order to act on the government policy regarding the registration of refugees, NADRA will need to set up registration centres and appoint additional staff in neighbourhoods that have a high concentration of Afghan and Bengali residents.  Currently, NADRA has three mega centres, 24 ordinary registration centres and two mobile registration vans to receive and process identity card applications and carry out other services.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2018.