Dhaka: The Election Commission (EC) has planned to provide national identity (NID) cards to the country’s all citizens above 15 years of age, says its secretary Sirazul Islam.

The EC has also decided in principle to collect the data of people, aged between 15 and 17, from across the country in three phases this year from July next, he said.

‘It’s still at the initial stage whether NID cards will be provided to young people, but the Commission at its meeting on Tuesday decided in principle to collect the data of young citizens,’ the EC secretary said.

If the NID cards are finally provided to young nationals, all Bangladeshis who were born before 1 January, 2000 will be eligible for the NID cards for the first time. Now the young people aged above 18 (voters) are illegible for the NID cards, according to EC officials.

According to the commission’s decision, they said, enumerators will collect data of the young citizens from 1 July to 15 October in the first phase, from 1 August to 14 August in the second phase and from 1 December to 15 December.

Some 7.2 million young citizens, the commission estimates, will be eligible for the NID cards this year.

During collecting the data, the enumerators will take into account the Secondary School Registration Cards or birth certificates to ascertain their ages, the EC officials added.

They said the young Bangladeshi nationals, whose data to be collected for providing NID cards, will be registered as voters soon after their ages exceed 18.

The Election Commission also has a plan to provide NID cards to citizens less than 15 years of age in the future.

According to the commission’s statistics, there are now 96.22 million voters in the country.