Butwal sees long queue for national ID cards

BUTWAL: The government has made national identity cards mandatory. However, people are facing significant challenges in obtaining them.

While the Ministry of Home Affairs claims that people do not have to wait for hours for national identity cards, people have been forced to queue up from as early as 5 pm.

The Butwal Area Administration Office has implemented a token system. However, many people, who queue up from morning, still do not get tokens. Some complain that they queued for up to three days to get the token.

Madan Parajuli from Shankarnagar in Tilottama Municipality-2 of Rupandehi said that he waited in line for the token for two days without success. “I stayed in line for tokens as I needed to open a bank account. I couldn’t get one on Thursday,” Parajuli said. “Since they reduced the quota to just 120 on Friday, I was left disappointed again.”

The office starts distributing tokens only after 9:30 am. However, people start queuing as early as 5 pm.

Asmita Khatri from Murghiya in Sainamaina-4 said she finally received a token after visiting the office for three consecutive days. “The first day, I arrived at 10 am when the tokens had already been distributed. The next day, I came at around 6 am and finally got one,” she said, holding the application form.

The office is struggling to manage the overwhelming crowd. Bishnu Prasad Gyawali, information officer at the office, said the crowd in Butwal is harder to manage compared to the District Administration Office, Bhairahawa. He said they serve 120 people on Fridays and up to 200 people on other days. “Not all service seekers are getting the service,” he admitted. “We have informed the department and are planning to add more stations.”

According to Gyawali, they plan to add another station within Butwal Sub-Metropolitan City by Monday or Tuesday. “With so many people coming at once, those seeking national identity cards are facing difficulties,” Gyawali said. “We are working to make it easier by adding another station in the next two or three days. Since it takes 5-7 minutes to process one application, we cannot distribute more than 200 tokens in a day.”

The office distributes tokens to 180 people daily and provides services to 15-20 senior citizens, people with disabilities, or those who are ill, without requiring them to wait in line.

The Butwal Area Administration Office provides the highest number of national identity card services in the district. Service seekers come from districts beyond Rupandehi, including Palpa, Kapilvastu, Gulmi, Arghakhanchi, Pyuthan and Baglung. As a result, the number of applicants has remained steady for the past four months. The office has distributed 27,017 national identity cards so far in the current fiscal year.