AT a time when many other departments are fast losing justification for their existence due to their lethargic attitude and lacklustre performance, the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) continues to excel in providing more facilities to the people in line with modern-day requirements. This is borne out by some of the recent initiatives of the organization that are widely being appreciated by different segments of the society.
There can be no two opinions that NADRA has become front-runner as far as introduction of latest technology for provision of services to the people is concerned, making lives of the citizens comfortable and contributing to the cherished objective of good governance. A few weeks after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the Authority to start issuing passports to facilitate masses, NADRA has announced to roll out the facility from June 10 when 30 of its branches in parts of the country would begin working as processing centres for the issuance of passports. The “passport counter” facility would be provided in those tehsils or sub-tehsils only where there is no passport office. Keeping in view the inconvenience that the growing number of passport applicants face at the limited number of Immigration and Passport Offices, involvement of NADRA would go a long way in mitigating sufferings of the people as they will not have to travel long distances at considerable expense to access the passport facility. NADRA executive offices were already engaged in issuance of passports but waiting time in those offices had increased significantly due to rush of the applicants and opening of passport processing counters at tehsil level would help mitigate this problem. However, people would get genuine benefit only if the Immigration and Passport Office increases its capacity to handle more applications and print copies within hours and not in days despite charging handsome fee. NADRA has also taken another landmark initiative – deployment of the Iris recognition system at its centres for identity verification and effectively addressing the duplicate identity issue. Iris recognition, considered an extremely reliable and accurate identification method with negligible false match rates, is the third biometric modality to NADRA’s biometric verification system. Earlier, NADRA successfully implemented the project for issuance of succession certificates across the country which saved people from the vagaries of cumbersome procedure and litigation. The way NADRA is expanding its operations to the benefit of the citizens should serve as a model for other departments and organizations, especially those engaged in delivery of services.
