Noman Mosharef :
The Election Commission (EC) wants to recruit more manpower to NID Wing to continue and develop the quality of NID-related services.
It may be noted that only 53 officials of the EC’s NID wing are providing NID-related services of the country’s 111,720,669 voters.
EC source said that the NID wing is expected now supposed to have 84 officials (72 from the revenue sector and 12 from outsourcing). But only 53 officials are currently working where 31 posts remained vacant. In this circumstance, the constitutional body wants to recruit more 73 officials to facilitate the NID-related services.
Source said that the EC had taken Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services (IDEA) project in 2011 to provide NID smart card to the citizens. To continue the NID-related services, the EC has taken IDEA-2 project, which started from July 2021 and expected to be implemented by June 2025. The recruitment and other activities for the new project are going on as project director has already appointed.
Project Director Brigadier General Abul Kashem Mohammad Fazlul Quader said that the temporary appointment process for IDEA-2 project is continuing.
“We did not complete the permanent appointment process yet,” he said.
Abul Kashem further said that they have sent a list of 73 posts to the Prime Minister’s Office from the revenue sector. The PMO sent the letter to the Public
Administration and the Finance Ministry for opinion. The Finance Ministry has given its opinion while the Public Administration did not yet.
It is known that in the NID wing 73 permanent posts will comprise two Assistant Directors, two Office Assistant cum Computer Typists, 50 Assistant Programmers and 19 Data Entry Control Supervisors.
EC officials said 8,000 to 10,000 NID correction applications are being submitted every day in ten regions. There are only ten officers in charge of the application category in these ten regions. Most of the officers are getting sick because of workloads. Therefore, it is necessary to increase the manpower in this section soon.
Officials said that despite the manpower crisis, the EC is trying to bring NID services under control using technology. The commission is now thinking of taking a fingerprint to prevent fraud in NID services, after the Irish reflection in the eyes. In order to bring this service to the doorsteps of the people, this constitutional institution is providing this service by decentralizing from the center.
According to the EC, the number of total voters is 111,720,669, of which 56,598,005 (50.66%) are males, 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, the EC started to charge for NID cards related services.
