The Presidential Palace on Monday announced that it has assigned a technical committee to assess the job functions of the population registration department in order to pave the way for the roll out of the much-anticipated electronic identity cards.

The technical committee is set to determine whether the population registration department should still fall under the Ministry of Interior (MoI) or become an independent department.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has called for more effort to be made to ensure the rollout of electronic identity cards.

Disagreements surfaced between leaders of the National Unity Government (NUG) over some controversial aspects of the cards, mainly the inclusion of ethnicity and nationality.

"A technical committee is working on this to see whether the population registration department should continue its job in the structure of the ministry of interior or whether it should be turned into a sovereign body. Practical work will start once the committee completes its job," said Dawa Khan Meenapal, deputy presidential spokesman.

"A committee under the chairmanship of his excellency second vice president Sarwar Danish has been formed. The committee is expected to finalize the three-item draft plan which was issued for the rollout of electronic identity cards and refer it to the cabinet," said MoI deputy spokesman Najib Danish.

Bringing about fundamental reforms in the election law and rolling out the electronic ID cards were among the top promises of the NUG leaders during their election campaigns.
However, many insist that the NUG leaders have failed to deliver on campaign promises.