KARACHI: I am privileged to be part of the team, which was responsible for setting up NADRA, as I was the country head of the company that set up the data warehouse for it. Subsequently, I also worked as one of the board members of this organisation. This background is important to establish that I have an understanding of the history of NADRA and the technology it uses.
Around four years ago, I moved to Karachi from Islamabad. I got my CNIC/NICOP changed to have my current Karachi address as both the ‘present’ and the ‘permanent address’. By definition, this means that the database — which is the master database for all Pakistani citizens — has the correct record about where I live. Out of my desire to be amongst the voters in the upcoming elections, I sent an SMS to 8300 to ensure my vote is correctly registered in Karachi. To my disappointment, the message I got suggested that my vote is still in Islamabad and not in Karachi. I will now go about the process of getting it corrected and hopefully it is not a complicated one.
However, what baffles me is why it is so difficult to create an electoral list from the NADRA data warehouse. I can guarantee that the technology is not a barrier and if the NADRA database is correct, logically the chances of having a flawed electoral list is almost negligible — barring human error or deliberate attempt to tamper with the data. If the electoral list is indeed linked to the master database of NADRA, the anomaly in my name would have been highlighted. This could mean (and I am speculating but would seriously recommend that NADRA does a real check of what is wrong) that possibly anyone who has moved from one place to the other — could be within or outside the city — and got his CNIC record corrected, has a wrong entry in the voters list. This could be because of a variety of reasons. The possibilities include:
1) The voters list may not have captured the movement of people from one place to the other; 2) The voters list may actually be old and not corrected for all old voters; 3) The voters list may actually not be linked to the NADRA database at all; 4) The voters list may not have been extracted from the NADRA database at all; 5) The way the voters list is created from the NADRA database may have some bug.
Whatever the reason, I would strongly recommend someone to look into the issue and ensure that citizens do not go through unnecessary hassle in ensuring that they are able to exercise the right to vote.
Veqar Islam
Published in The Express Tribune, November 21st, 2012.
