The Election Commission (EC) is considering a major initiative to bring students of government primary schools under the National Identity Card (NID) registration system. Initially, the proposal aims to register minors aged between 6 and 16. However, no final decision has been made on the matter yet.

Senior EC officials disclosed the plan on Saturday (November 7).

According to EC sources, the issue was discussed in detail at a recent policy-level meeting of the Election Commission. During the meeting, EC Secretary Akhtar Ahmed formally proposed registering underage citizens for NIDs. He suggested that the registration process could begin directly through government primary schools to facilitate the creation of a database of children aged 6 to 16.

Following the meeting, Election Commissioner Abul Fazal Md. Sanaullah, chairman of the Committee on the Application of Information Technology in National Identity Cards, Voter Lists and Election Management, instructed officials to organise a detailed workshop on the proposal.

The Director General of the National Identity Registration Wing has been assigned the responsibility of preparing a set of practical recommendations after consulting relevant stakeholders and experts.

Currently, the Election Commission allows citizens to obtain national identity cards upon reaching the age of 17, while their names are automatically included in the voter list once they turn 18.

However, various quarters have long been calling for younger citizens to be brought under the NID system to ensure their identities and facilitate access to different public services. Against this backdrop, the commission is now actively considering the registration of minors.

Meanwhile, according to the EC’s latest updated statistics, the country currently has a total of 128,777,643 registered voters. Of them, 65,510,665 are men, 63,265,711 are women and 1,267 belong to the third gender.