Bangladesh News

The Election Commission (EC) has now decided to launch a pilot project to study the feasibility of its much-talked project for simultaneously preparing a voter list with photographs and national identity cards before holding the next parliamentary election.
The pilot project, to be run on experimental basis, will start within a month in a remote rural and an urban area to assess the time limit and the constraints to implementing the EC’s mega voter list project at an estimated cost of Tk 400 crore in next 18 months, EC sources said.

“The Election Commission decided on Saturday to launch a pilot project, but we did not identify the areas where the pilot projects will be implemented,” Election Commissioner Sahul Hossain said yesterday. “Through this pilot project, possible difficulties will also be identified to avert those in implementing the voter list project,” he added.

Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) ATM Shamsul Huda in a press briefing on Thursday said the EC decided to simultaneously prepare a voter list with photographs and national identity cards in next 18 months. He also said no election will be held in next 18 months, which is the ‘minimum time’ required to implement the voter list project.

The CEC’s statement triggered debates regarding the time for preparing the voter list to hold the stalled ninth parliamentary election.

Talking to reporters at his office yesterday, Election Commissioner Brig Gen (retd) M Sakhawat Hossain said it is not possible to implement the voter list project in less than 18 months.

About the pilot project, the election commissioner said the EC has planned to launch the pilot project at the end of this month or early in May.

“A tentative timeframe for implementing the voter list project and possible difficulties will be identified in this process,” he said.

Meanwhile a delegation of Bangladesh Army on Saturday morning made a multimedia presentation at the EC Secretariat conference room on the process of implementing the voter list project.

“Experts of Bangladesh Army will provide all sorts of technological assistance and build public opinion for the task. The Election Commission officials will prepare the voter list,” Election Commissioner Sakhawat said.

The CEC on last Thursday however said the army would be given responsibilities to implement the massive voter list scheme.

Referring to the army’ presentation, Election Commissioner Sahul Hossain said, “They showed how the project would be implemented. It may require 10 minutes to prepare an identity card after taking one’s photograph.”

Required number of committees will be formed comprising army personnel, chairmen and members of union parishads and nearest contestants of last election to the bodies. They will visit door to door with digital cameras and other instruments to simultaneously prepare voter list with photographs and national identity cards, Election Commissioner Sakhawat said.

The identity cards would contain a set of information about the cardholders, he added.