ISLAMABAD   -   Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan on Thursday launched NADRA Biker Service for carrying out all processes of CNIC (computerized national identi­ty card) applied in renewal and modi­fication categories at the door-step of the applicant.

The inauguration ceremony was held at National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Headquarters in Islamabad.

Speaking on the occasion, the Interi­or Minister said that having a wide net­work of NADRA registration centres (NRCs) in total, mobile registration vans (MRVs) and online Pak Identity Service/Mobile App across the country to cater for the registration of the peo­ple of Pakistan without prejudice on daily basis, the introduction of a NA­DRA Biker shall bring the authority’s services at people’s homes.

The minister directed the Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik that smart facilities should be introduced in small towns across all provinces. The Biker Ser­vice is a great facility and its network should be spread throughout the coun­try, said Rana Sanaullah

The minister directed that the scope of online facilities for overseas Paki­stanis should also be expanded.

He urged chairman NADRA to devel­op an automated system to register the new born children.

During his visit to NADRA Headquar­ters, Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik briefed the Interior Minister about NA­DRA operations in Sindh, Balochistan and South Punjab which have been badly affected by devastating floods and heavy rains. The minister was in­formed that the monsoon rains and floods have caused heavy losses to most of the buildings of NRCs, which are inundated under water. Howev­er, the equipment has been saved and evacuated. Houses of 150 NADRA em­ployees in those areas have been dam­aged, the chairman informed.

During briefing, the Chairman NA­DRA informed the minister that more than 37 million people have been terri­bly affected due to on-going floods and continuous rains. He said that heavy rains and flooding situation in certain areas had led to the loss of CNICs of af­fected people which would be needed to have an access to governments’ re­lief disbursement and other relief ac­tivities. About Biker Service, Malik said that initially the pilot phase of the ser­vice would be started in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. By the end of December this year, NADRA Biker Service would be extended to all districts of the coun­try, he added.

Chairman NADRA said that after roll­ing out digital online services for the citizens, a home-based Biker Service is basically a portable NADRA Centre that will walk into the peoples’ loung­es and register them in their premises saving them from the hassle of visiting NRCs. Through this service the female registration officers using scooties will also carry out the registration of wom­en only.

Malik apprised the minister that he had been working on out-of-box solu­tions with a prime focus on creating hand-on facilitation and hassle-free registration for the general public in a bid to accommodate more than 125000 footfalls daily at 771 NADRA centres across the country. He said that long queues at NADRA registration centres, especially in big and densely populat­ed cities led him to go an extra mile by successfully establishing 97 new NRCs and adding more than 100 new MRVs in the existing fleet within the past 10 months.