Rahim Yar Khan is leading all districts in the country in number of women registering for new computerised national identity cards, National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) Assistant Director Muhammad Asif said on Friday.
He was addressing a seminar held to highlight the importance of vote registration.
The lists of new CNICs are sent to the Election Commission of Pakistan every month, where names are added to the voters’ lists.
The seminar, My Vote, My Identity was organised by Community Relations Group in collaboration with Sangat Foundation.
Asif said though the NADRA centres in Rahim Yar Khan had a regular capacity to register 400 applications for computerised national identity cards per day, the centre was registering 600 applications every day. This, he said, was to ensure that maximum citizens could cast their votes in the upcoming general elections. He said all those who had received their identity cards by December 31, 2012, would be registered by the ECP.
Commissioner Mujeebur Rehman said there was a need for change, especially in the way women’s rights were death with.
“This will require various political and social organisations to prepare a strategy to increase women’s participation in politics and economy” he added.
PML-N District President Khalid Shaheen said more than 200,000 women in the district were still not registered as voters. This, he said, was an alarming situation.
He urged NADRA officials to make the registration process easier for public so that they are not discouraged by long and complicated procedures.
Aurat Foundation District Coordinator Umar Ali Khan Baloch, Action Aid Coordinator Mughees Khan, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Women’s Wing leader Nausheen Tariq, Pakistan Peoples Party District Information Secretary Mehmoodul Hassan and PPP Minorities’ Wing leader Bhaiya Ram Anjum were prominent among the seminar speakers.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 2nd, 2013.