Women Union Parishad members to verify NID applications

Female Union Parishad (UP) members will soon be able to officially verify National Identity Card (NID) application forms, an authority currently exercised only by the male members of UP. The government will soon issue a circular empowering women UP members to act as verification officials, said Local Government Division (LGD) Secretary Abdul Malek during the closing program of the Workshop on Union Parishad Governance Project (UPGP), held at BIAM auditorium on Sunday morning. Speaking as the chief guest, Abdul Malek explained that the reason why women UP members were not being used as verification officials is because each of them represents three wards. The confusion that has risen from this is that the NID verification official needs to be a UP member of a particular ward and people did not know if an individual representing three wards could be a verification official. “Why should only a male UP member be able to sign the form? Female members are also eligible to sign the form! To clarify the matter, we are going to issue a circular empowering women ward members as NID verifiers,” Abdul Malek said. He said the male public representatives need to change their mindset and should also help women members in performing their duties as stipulated by the Union Parishad Law, 2009. The UNDP supported project under the Local Government Division (LGD), has been implemented with financial and technical support from the EU, Danida, UNDP and UNCDF from 2012 to 2017 in 564 Union Parishads under seven districts---Kishoreganj, Brahmanbaria, Sirajganj, Khulna, Barguna Sunamganj and Rangpur. At the event on Sunday, Dr Salahuddin M Anisuzzaman, professor of Public Administration at the University of Dhaka said UPGP has significantly contributed to enhancing institutional capacity of Union Parishad (UP) through activating ward shobhas, standing committees, open budget meetings and increased the civic and local community’s engagement with local planning and budgeting. The Union Parishad Governance Project has reduced poverty as much as by 5%. Audrey Maillot, Team Leader, Governance, EU said one of the major targets of the project was to empower women. That in itself is a difficult job since the prevalent attitude towards women is still very biased, panelists said. Naihati Union Parishad Chairman, Kamal Hossain Bulbul said: “We primarily thought that the women ward members were only making up numbers. But after the workshop we have learnt what is their role in parishad and how we could increase their ability to serve the people.”