NDMA to revise policy as complaints surge

NDMA will be revisiting strategies on distribution of Watan cards following increase in complaints.

ISLAMABAD: The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) will be revising its strategies on the framework involved in the distribution of Watan cards among flood victims following an increase in the number of complaints.

Some 3,150 complaints have been registered at the NDMA through its helpline of which 3,000 are related to the distribution of Watan cards.

NDMA chairman General Nadeem held a meeting in this regard at the NDMA secretariat with all the concerned authorities and representatives of the provincial disaster management authorities while various banks involved in the scheme also participated.

Of the total number of complaints, 2,000 are about the mechanism and delay in the registration process. “There are several widows and minors who face the issue of registration and issuance of their ID cards” said an official in the NDMA. “Yes, there were several complaints, particularly from interior Sindh, but it is the local administration’s responsibility, not NADRA’s, to avoid such problems,” a senior official in NADRA told the The Express Tribune.

Since a large proportion of the flood victims were unlettered, many other issues were noted by the authority such as the punching of a wrong pin number.

“As most of the people who have received a card have never been to a bank and do not know how to operate an ATM machine, they tend to punch in the wrong pin several times which makes the machine retain their card,” said an NDMA official. Another area that needs to be addressed is the issue of data mismatches. “We have received a few cases in which the data received does not match NADRA’s data,” added the official.

According to NADRA, the figure of those receiving Watan card is subject to change. “We are expecting about 1,600,000 people, these are those who lost their cards or have changed their marital status or still have to get new cards made,” said the official.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, Haaris Qureshi, a social worker who has been visiting the flood-hit areas, stressed that there are minor issues such as police taking bribes from the affected people before issuing them Watan cards or the ATM in-charge at the bank charging a fee before depositing the cash for the people with the cards, which are leading to bigger problems of monitoring and coordination.

“There needs to be a new system in place where they are guided,” Qureshi said, adding, “There is an envelope which has the pin typed on top of it and the Watan card inside it. Due to lack of knowledge, people tend to throw the envelope away which becomes an issue. Then most of them do not even know how to operate an ATM machine and are exploited by the people in charge.”

Commenting on this issue and defending the authority, the NDMA official however said, “We have tried very hard to work on mass awareness of the Watan card scheme. There are several unavoidable issues which still exist due to illiteracy but we are trying our best with media campaigns to avoid such issues.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29^th, 2010.