Noman Mosharef :
People who need correction of National Identity Card (NID) can now appeal for it in field level (Upazilla/Thana Nirbachan office level).
The Election Commission (EC) is going to take initiatives for making a provision in this regard.
However, there is rule that when the citizens application rejected for correction NID, they have to proceed for it in EC Secretariat.
Source said, the field level officials have already given their opinions over the issue.
Md Nuruzzaman Talukder Director (Operations) of EC’s NID Wing said, we are working on the draft policy. We have got suggestions from field level officials and will present at commission’s board meeting soon. “EC board is supreme authority to approve it,” he added.
Suggestions made the field level officials are- if an applicant’s application is rejected, he / she can apply to the canceling authority within 45 working days of the cancellation to obtain a copy of the cancellation order by attaching the court fee prescribed by the government, the applicant may appeal to the Appellate Authority within 60 working days of receipt of a copy of the cancellation order. If an appeal is made after the mentioned time, it will not be accepted, the Appellate Authority shall dispose of the appeal within 90 working days of receipt of the appeal.
According to EC sources, in many cases, the application may have been rejected for not submitting any special documents, but later he is re-applying with the same information as before.
As a result, his application is being rejected again. This is wasting both his money and time. Therefore, it is recommended to apply for amendment in the draft policy only once. If someone’s application is rejected, the person concerned will know why his application has been rejected. Based on this, you can appeal by adding the documents that were lacking.
The appeal of the rejected application from the upazila can be made to the district, the appeal of the rejected application in the district can be made to the Regional Election Office and the rejected application can be made to the Regional Election Office in the NID Wing.
Earlier, this issue was discussed at the Zoom meeting on December 9. The working paper was published on 3 January. Then it was decided to make a policy on how to appeal in the field as well as in the commission, what kind of appeal should be made to whom, how to apply. Therefore, in the draft policy, it is also said to take initiative to give a letter asking for the opinion of the field level.
It was decided at that meeting that the draft policy would be invited by letter in the field to give opinion / recommendation and in the light of the opinion / recommendation received from the field, the draft policy would be revised and re-discussed at the next meeting.
According to EC’s information, the number of the total voters is 111,720,669, of which 56,598,005 (50.66%) are men, 55,122,223 females (49.33%) and 441 transgender ones – in the country.
Initially NID cards related services such as lost of NID cards and correction were free. From 1st September 2015, EC started to charge for NID cards related services.
