The registration process for the renewal of the cards of about 1.4 million Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan has been completed. The process of converting the proof of registration (POR) cards of these refugees into biometric was started from April 15 last year.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) called the renewal campaign a drive (Documents Renewal and Information Verification Exercise), an exercise in document renewal and information verification. For this exercise, UNHCR in collaboration with NADRA, Afghan Commissionerate and Saffron Ministry had set up 40 centers across the country, 21 of which were in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The UNHCR said yesterday that Pakistan had successfully completed the first smart card registration of Afghan refugees. The UNHCR commends Pakistan for verifying the data of Afghan refugees across the country and issuing smart cards to them. The UN report also said that for the first time, Pakistan completed the process of large-scale verification of Afghan refugees on December 31, which resulted in the renewal of data on about 1.5 million Afghan refugees.
Under this scheme, more than 700,000 new smart identity cards have been issued so far, while the remaining cards will also be distributed earlier this year. All these cards will be valid till June 30, 2023 and will contain biometric data which will be in accordance with the system used for authentication in Pakistan. Will get
During the exercise, new biometric cards were issued only to those refugees who had POR cards which expired on December 31, 2015. The ‘drive’ will also enable Afghan refugees to identify specific needs or vulnerabilities for protection, UNHCR hopes the data will also be helpful in helping those who decide to repatriate to their homes in Afghanistan
