Citizens in Humla are struggling to get their national identity cards because their citizenship and voter ID details do not match. Even though teams have been sent to the rural municipalities to issue the cards, people have been facing problems due to errors in personal details caused by the negligence of the responsible authorities during the earlier issuance of citizenship and voter ID cards.
Khadka Budha from Korka, Chankheli Rural Municipality–6, complained that errors in the citizenship cards issued earlier by the authorities are causing problems in obtaining the national identity card. According to him, his citizenship card mistakenly lists his mother’s name where his wife’s name should be, and his grandfather’s name where his mother’s name should be, making it difficult to get the national ID card. Budha explained that, being uneducated, they could not verify the details, and the person filling out the form wrote them incorrectly. He added that they spent an entire day traveling to the district headquarters in Simkot, but only incurred expenses, as the national identity card was not issued.
He stated that due to the shortcomings of the District Election Office and the District Administration Office, hundreds of people like him have been facing problems. Since a complete citizenship certificate is required to issue a national identity card, mismatches in citizenship numbers, issuance dates, or even birth dates have caused delays and difficulties for service recipients while correcting their citizenship details to obtain the national ID card.
Although teams from the National Identity Card and Registration Department have started a campaign in recent days to distribute national identity cards in the remote rural municipalities of Humla, not all citizens have received their cards. Rajendra Chand, Assistant Chief District Officer, explained that if there are discrepancies between the details in the District Administration Office records and those on the citizenship certificate, the law allows corrections to certain details.