Price of Smart NID Cards Set To Increase As Dollar Price Shoots Up

The cost of Smart NID also increased due to increase in dollar price. Due to the high value of the dollar, it is suggested that the cost of buying a blank card alone is increasing by more than 12 taka. Along with this, the Election Commission (EC) has decided to increase the total cost of 36 taka per card including the cost of personalisation, scanning, packaging and sending to the upazila/ police station.

It is said that such a decision was made in the meeting of the 'National Identity Card, Voter List and Application of Information Technology in Election Management' meeting held on October 17. The minutes of the meeting also mentioned that the chairman of the committee Election Commissioner Brigadier General (retd) Md Ahsan Habib Khan has given instructions to take further action to implement the matter.

According to officials, the manufacturer Bangladesh Machine Tools Factory (BMTF) was supposed to supply 3 crore black smart cards at a cost of 406 crore 50 lakh Taka. In this case, the price per card was 135 taka 50 paisa. But since the price of the dollar has increased from 84 taka to more than 110 taka, it is not possible to supply the card at the previous price. So they asked to pay 172 taka per card by increasing taka 36 by 50 paisa. In this case, 109 crore 50 lakhs will be required for 3 crore smart cards.

Earlier, Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services (IDEA) phase II project for smartcards was approved in ECNEC meeting on 24 November 2020. In this, 480 crore taka are kept for purchase of 3 crore blank smart cards, personalisation, scanning, packaging and sending to upazilas/ police stations. Therefore, the total cost per card is 160 taka. Due to the rise in the dollar price, the proposal is 12 taka more than the project allocation. That too is only for buying blank cards. Along with this, the cost of persolization, scanning, packaging and sending to the upazila/ police station will be added. So the committee decided to approve the increased rate of the card but reduced the total amount of the card. That is, instead of 3 crore cards, it decided to collect 2 crore 36 lakh 33 thousand 720 cards. The remaining cards also recommend procurement from the revenue sector at the end of the project period. Officials said that the matter will be implemented only if the commission approves it.

In 2011, the Election Commission headed by ATM Shamsul Huda undertook a project with the support of the World Bank to issue high-quality national identity cards. It is called the Identification System for Enhancing Access to Services or IDEA. Under which this card was issued to citizens in 2015. At that time, EC signed a contract with the French technology product manufacturer Abarth Technologies for the supply of 90 million cards. However, the company failed to deliver the cards within the stipulated time despite extending the project period several times. As a result, citizens' receipt of smart cards is suspended. Then in 2018, it was decided to collect this high-quality card from the national organization BMTF. At present EC is taking assistance from this institution.

Even though eight years have passed in terms of providing smart cards to the citizens, the EC has not yet distributed the nine crore cards. Currently, the number of voters in the country is 11 crore 90 lakh 61 thousand 158 people. Besides, EC is also giving national identity cards to those under 18 years of age. In this case, about three crore citizens should be given smart cards immediately. And that is why the IDEA II project (ongoing) was taken up.