ISLAMABAD – The National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) has equipped the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) with modern online verification system that has been connected with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for the scrutiny of general election contestants.NADRA itself would get verified the personal data of the candidates through the system. All candidates contesting the elections for the National Assembly and Provincial Assemblies seats will the scrutinized through the system so that no tax evader, loan defaulter and a convicted person under charges of corruption could become a parliamentarian. The commission would also scrutinize whether the immediate family members of the candidate were any tax evader as well tax defaulter or not.Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik while talking in his office here on Wednesday, informed that NADRA had installed the online verification system at ECP and the staff of the commission was being trained to fully make the system operational.He said at first NADRA would provide the personal about any contestant to the ECP including the details of his spouse, children after due verification of his computerized national identity card (CNIC). “The system has been developed in such a way that al the scrutiny process from all the state institutions would be completed less than 24 hours,” he added.After that, the ECP would get verified the data of the contestant directly from FBR, SBP and NAB through the system. FBR would check the details of the tax evasion of any candidate and his immediate family members if any; similarly SBP would verify the details of the loan defaults. And, NAB would provide all the details about the candidate with it, if any, and inform the commission either the person was ever convicted on corruption charges.All these institutions would separately issue the verification certificate in the name of each candidate and a copy of that would be immediately dispatched to the commission.To make the online system operational, the Commission in consultation with the NADRA has asked all the returning officers either to install online system in their offices or fax machines to initiate the scrutiny process. Soon any candidate would submit his/her nomination papers with the returning officer concerned, he would immediately either fax the copy of it , as mentioned by the candidate, to the commission or send the details through online system.The Chairman NADRA has said that generally the clerical staff of returning officers was not well equipped with the IT techniques, so they had been given the option of fax machines.According to some media report, NAB has decided to establish monitoring cells at all its zonal offices in all the four provinces to cooperate with the commission in this regard. A team of NAB appointed by the bureau’s Headquarters in Islamabad would establish a similar cell at the ECP and it would provide all the details about any contestant to the commission within 24 hours.