Islamabad the 9^th December, 2010.- A high level meeting under the chairmanship of Mr. Ishtiak Ahmad Khan, Secretary, Election Commission of Pakistan was held today to finalise necessary steps for preparation of Computerised Electoral Rolls, ensuring its fool-proof security, early legislation for declaring CNIC as mandatory for voter registration. The meeting was attended by Muhammad Tariq Malik, Deputy Chairman NADRA, Syed Muzaffar Ali, General Manager NADRA, Mr. Attaullah Khan Bangash, Senior Joint Secretary, Ministry of Law, Justice & Parliamentary Affairs, Mr. Arif Alsam Kundi, Director, Ministry of Information Technology, Secretary, National Telecommunication Information Security Board, Ch. Muhammad Akram, Ministry of Interior and senior officers of the ECP.

 

Mr. Ishtiak Ahmad Khan said that for holding Free, Fair and Transparent elections, preparation of credible and error free computerized electoral rolls through the ECP-NADRA collaboration is an important need of the day. He said the pilot project of Computerized Electoral Rolls which was started in mid October in four districts of all the four provinces has already been successfully completed. This will pave way for full fledge ECP-NADRA collaboration on national level for preparation of error-free Computerized Electoral Rolls along with photographs. An MoU between ECP-NADRA is expected to be signed in January, 2011 soon after the required legislation by the Parliament making CNIC mandatory for registration of votes. A bill in this regard is expected to be moved for legislation in the coming National Assembly’s session.

 

The Deputy Chairman NADRA said that the security of national data was a common responsibility and expressed his trust in the IT Wing of the ECP to protect and preserve personal information of the people from any abuse. He assured fullest support to ECP on behalf of NADRA to realize the dream of computerized Electoral Rolls on the basis of data available with them. He announced that we have achieved registration of 94% adult population of Pakistan.

 

Furthermore, to ensure the security of Computerized Electoral Rolls, a Committee was also constituted by the Secretary, ECP, comprising legal and IT experts of the ECP, Ministry of Information Technology and NADRA to finalise recommendations on security concerns and within ten days, finalise their recommendations on the draft bill for legislation.