Doppelganger: Penalty for dual CNICs lands Nadra in trouble

Staff attacked over asking for elderly woman to pay.

HYDERABAD: All centres of the National Database and Registration Authority were closed in protest on Monday after workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement manhandled staff at an office in Latifabad.

According to Raza Khan, who represents the staff association, MNA Syed Tayyab Hussain visited the office along with the workers. The workers flared up after a computer operator, Nadeem Liaquat, asked an elderly woman to pay Rs10,000 in a penalty fee for holding dual identity cards, he said. “They slapped and kicked me and abused the staff,” Liaquat told The Express Tribune. “The staff tried to make them understand that they are not asking for Rs10,000 as a bribe but for a penalty for holding dual CNICs.”

The incident happened in the afternoon and the staff association shut all four centres in the district in protest at around 2 pm. However, the MNA said that they have been continuously receiving complaints about the behaviour of the staff, that delays work and asks for bribes. “That woman belonged to a minority community and she has been visiting the NADRA office to have corrections made to her record for the last seven months,” he told The Express Tribune. He said the staff failed to explain why she needed to pay the penalty.

NADRA has classified dual CNIC holders into three separate categories and the fee or penalty for correction ranges between Rs1,000 to Rs10,000. For the fast-track processing, Rs20,000 are charged. The woman was placed in C category, which means she deliberately submitted different information and obtained two separate CNICs.

The MNA said that the penalty was too high for poor people to pay and that he would raise the issue in the National Assembly and would also ask NADRA to simplify the process.

The issue was resolved within office timings after Hussain and the workers met the association’s representatives.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 17^th, 2012.