National Database and Registration Authority

The National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA) (Urdu: مختاریہ برائے قومی اندراجات و معطیات‎) is an independent and autonomous agency under the control of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan that regulates government databases and statistically manages the sensitive registration database of all the national citizens of Pakistan.^[1][2]

Descriptive

The ID card has the following information on it:

1. Legal Name,
2. Gender (male, female, or transgender),
3. Father's name (Husband's name for married females),^[3]
4. Identification Mark,
5. Date of Birth,
6. National Identity Card Number,
7. Family Tree ID Number,
8. Current Address,
9. Permanent Address,
10. Date of Issue,
11. Date of Expiry,
12. Signature,
13. Photo, and Fingerprint (Thumbprint) NADRA also records the applicant's religion, but this is not noted on the CNIC itself.

NADRA has registered over 90% of women in the Pakistan. Although NADRA has started issuing ultra modern SCNIC (Smart Computerized National Identity Card) too having information both in English and Urdu languages respectively.

History

After the 1971 war resulted in East-Pakistan gaining independence as Bangladesh, a new statistical database system was needed to ensure the safety of Pakistan's citizens as well as the national security of the country^[4] as questions were being raised over who was a Pakistani and who was not.^[3][4] So the Bhutto regime introduced a national registration act in the Parliament of Pakistan to establish an authority to issue photo IDs to all registered Pakistani citizens.^[3][4]

Related pages

• Pakistani passport