The Election Commission’s proposal for selecting a strategic firm to produce smart cards will be scrutinised by the cabinet committee on public purchase on Thursday.
The commission selected Bangladesh Center for Communication Programs (BCCP) as the strategic communications approach firm, with the consent of the World Bank.
The EC will spend Tk143.7m for strategic communications and the firm will produce smart cards for citizens under the Identification System Project to ensure the smooth operation of future elections.
Secretary of the Election Commission Dr Muhammad Sadik told the Dhaka Tribune on Wednesday there was no possibility of using smart cards in the upcoming election, due by January.
“We are just distributing manual cards for the next general election.”
He said the commission’s Identification system for Enhancing Access to services (IDEA) project for introducing smart national identity cards was a continuing one.
“We are talking to officials and banks regarding the implementation of the project and the EC has selected the firm for this,” he added.
As per the EC’s proposal, the EC will build the National Identification Database System under IDEA project for distributing over 90m smart cards. Total cost of the project would be Tk1.95bn and it will run from July 2011 to June 2016. The World Bank is financing the project.
The EC started distributing manual NID cards among fresh voters in the capital on September 25. It prepared nearly 7m fresh NID cards against the same number of new voters, who were included in the electoral rolls during the countrywide updating throughout 2012.
Currently, the number of registered voters is 92,198,029.
