Dhaka: Some 50 lakh voters in Dhaka North and South city corporations are going to receive smart national identity (NID) cards from October next replacing the existing laminated ones.

The Election Commission (EC) has already completed all the necessary preparations to start the distribution of the high security featured cards on October 2 next in the capital.  

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to inaugurate the distribution programme.  

As per the EC’s plan, the voters of Dhaka city and Rowmari upazila of Kurigram district will be provided with the smart cards in the first phase. Subsequently, all other voters across the country will get the cards in phases by December 2017.

‘We’re ready to distribute the smart cards,’ Director General of National Identity Registration Wing of the Election Commission Brig Gen Sultanuzzaman Md Salahuddin told UNB.  

Prints of 10 fingers and photographs of (eye) irises of voters will be taken during the distribution of the smart cards, he said.  

EC officials said the printing of the smart cards is now going on in full swing in 10 machines imported from the USA. Each machine can produce 950 cards an hour.  

The smart cards and machinery to take fingerprints and photographs of irises have already been sent to 10 thana election offices of the capital. Some 75 makeshift camps will be set up in the capital to provide the smart cards from 93 wards of Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC).  

Two lakh cards will be distributed a day from the camps. The voters who have laminated the NID cards need to submit the laminated ones to get the smart NID cards.  

Alongside distribution of the smart cards in the capital, the Commission is also continuing its preparation to provide such cards among other voters across the country. The production cost of each smart card is some US$ 2 that will have the 10-year validity.  

The 10-digit smart cards will be distributed free among the country’s voters initially under the EC’s Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services (IDEA) project. But the service takers will need to pay fees to avail of services in the case of renewal, damage and losing of the cards.

In January 2015, a French digital security company, ‘Oberthur Technologies’, got the Tk 796-crore contact for production and distribution of 90 million smart NID cards by June 2016, but it failed to do the job. Later, the IDEA project period was extended to December 2017 from the July 2016.

The smart card will have multipurpose uses in getting some 25 types of services like TIN number, driving licence, passport, opening bank accounts, marriage registration and admission to educational institutions.

Now some 92 million, out of the country’s 100 million voters, have laminated the laminated NID cards inscribed with the names of voters and their parents, dates of birth, addresses of the voters and their ID numbers.

The remaining eight million voters are yet to get the laminated NID cards as the Commission keeps halted the distribution saying that the voters will be provided with smart cards.  

The voters having no NID card are facing immense sufferings in availing themselves of various civic services.

The Commission in 2011 worked out a plan to provide the smart card under the IDEA project involving Tk 1379.19 crore, which is jointly sponsored by the World Bank and the government of Bangladesh.

In 2007, the previous commission, headed by Dr ATM Shamsul Huda, introduced the NID card service with the help of the army before the 2008 parliamentary elections.