Nepal: Biometric election registration

Biometric voters list with 10.9 million voters ready (The Himalayan Times)

The Election Commission has developed a biometric voters' list with 10.9 million eligible voters, who have so far registered at the Commission along with finger print and a photograph.

Total Nepal population: 29,890,686 (July 2012 est.)

Nepal struggles with Citizenship, ID infrastructure

Getting Nepali citizenship is a tough call (BBC)

Sharad Bheswakar, top cricketer and sporting icon in Nepal, is not actually a Nepali. At least officially, he is not a citizen of the country he calls home.

He was born and raised in Nepal and plays for the national team. He has an Indian father and a Nepali mother, so getting citizenship should not be a problem according to the law of the land.

But his efforts to acquire Nepali citizenship so far have been futile.

"It's been almost eight to nine years that I've been trying to get my citizenship. I'm still facing problems. It's really frustrating at times," he says.

A few years ago, he was given a travel document as a special concession so he could play in matches abroad.

Biometric solutions could help in the implementation of what comes out of a political process but they can't substitute for the process.

Nepal Preparing for Biometric National ID Card

They have a cool flag, too.

Source: CIA World Factbook - Nepal

  Ordinance must for national ID project - Official says other preparations on track (The Himalayan Times)

The report recommends polycarbonated cards for the NID and suggests improving the quality of finger prints that the Election Commission has collected, noting that the prints are of low quality and do not meet the standard for biometric ID cards. An NID card is estimated to cost six to eight dollars.

“After the detailed project report, the consultant is preparing bid documents for the project,” Dahal said.

He anticipated that this process will take a long time to complete.

Nepal Debates Biometric ID for All Citizens

If passed the govt would issue 400‚000 cards in first phase (The Himalayan Times)

...NIDMC also urged Gupta to seek political consensus in Parliament and approve the bill to avoid unnecessary delay in issuing cards. The law minister must give the bill a go-ahead before sending it to the Cabinet.

The government has already earmarked budget for the project to start issuing the multi-purpose bio-metric NID cards to all the citizens from this fiscal"...

Nepal: No headway in biometric ID project

Government will be unable to issue the biometric National Identity (NID) Card this year if it does not speed up the preparations (The Himalayan Times via @m2sys)

“The process of issuing NID card cannot gain pace unless law minister gives his nod to the NID bill,” the source added.

NIDMC had hired a Canada-based international smart card consultant Ardaman Singh Kohli for 20 months to prepare the DPR with assistance from the Asian Development Bank.