ISLAMABAD: (APP) Minister for Interior, Chauhdry Nisar Ali Khan, taking notice of gross violations of PEPRA rules, on Friday suspended all officials including Director General, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) who were part of hiring process of a building.
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had submitted its inquiry report into hiring of a rented building for NADRA office with reportedly shady contracts clauses and on exorbitant rent.
He was chairing a NADRA Board meeting which was attended by its Members.
The Minister directed NADRA to refrain from hiring any rented building across Pakistan for its centers.
As per directions of the Minister, NADRA has introduced a penalty clause for discourteous and misbehavior of officials from October 31, 2016 with an aim to facilitate citizens at its centers.
He directed the management to digitize complaint system against NADRA officials in a second phase.
Over issue of E-passport, Ch. Nisar directed that its first phase should be launched in May-June 2017.
During the first phase, official and diplomatic passports would be issued.
He directed Director General Immigration and Passport to come up with a comprehensive strategy for issuance of 10-year validity E-passport and said complete conversion to E-passport should be completed within two years in a phased manner.
Regarding online passport services, the Minister decided to formerly inaugurate the launch on next Monday.
He tasked NADRA to identify government lands for establishing permanent infrastructure of NADRA within one-month so as to permanently block avenues of corruption in NADRA and to address issues of transparency.
He said in cases where land for establishment of NADRA center is not available, then a decision for hiring a building in this regard should duly be approved by its Board.
In relation to ongoing national security CNIC re-verification drive, NADRA has so far verified 90.9 million CNICs while 60,675 aliens/intruders had been identified during ongoing campaign.
So far 2473 aliens have voluntarily surrendered their Pakistani CNICs obtained through illegal means.
Out of 2473, 2392 were Afghans, 57 Bangladeshi, one Indian, one Indonesian and one Iraqi have returned their CNIC on voluntarily basis.
According to details, 98 persons helped NADRA in identifications of aliens in NADRA database.
The Minister also assigned NADRA's management to undertake performance audit of all rural and urban NADRA centers along with their human resource utility to ensure optimal utilization of available work force.