Mannan for completing NPR in comprehensive way

Planning Minister MA Mannan yesterday stressed the need for framing the National Population Register (NPR) in a comprehensive and concerted way in order to render all government services and civic facilities in a fruitful manner.
“Framing the NPR is a huge task and also a challenge…We’ll have to complete the task of framing NPR in a concerted and comprehensive way,” he said.
The Planning Minister said this while addressing a workshop as the chief guest on “National Population Register (NPR)” held at the NEC Conference Room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
State Minister for Planning Dr Shamsul Alam spoke on the occasion as special guest with Statistics and Informatics Division Secretary Muhammad Yamin Chowdhury in the chair. BBS Director General Mohammad Tajul Islam gave the welcome address at the workshop.
BBS Director Dr Md Shahadat Hossain made a presentation on the NPR while Statistics and Informatics Division Additional Secretary Sheikh Md Kabedul Islam moderated the workshop.
The planning minister said once the NPR is prepared, it would help the government to detect forgery of data as well as ensure safety and security of data and thus move the country one step ahead in building a developed and prosperous “Digital Bangladesh”.
He said it is matter of comfort that the capacity of the BBS has increased a lot compared to the past adding: “But, still it has to go a long way.”
Mannan also assured that all necessary cooperation would be extended to the BBS for successfully completing the NPR.
Dr Shamsul Alam said NPR is an important thing for the whole nation as necessary information of all citizens would be incorporated in it.
Mentioning that almost similar kinds of data and information is available in Population and Housing Census, NPR and in the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES), he suggested for avoiding fragmentation and overlapping of data while preparing the NPR.
Stressing the need for using updated data, the state minister for Planning said if data is not updated, then the projections would not be correct and thus the plans would be foiled.
He also suggested BBS for updating the existing base year of 2005-06.
Dr Shamsul Alam informed that the government aims to bring all poor people of the country under social protection by 2025 for which there is a need for completing the NPR as early as possible. According to BBS, NPR is a
comprehensive database containing particulars identifying every usual individual resident +6 months in the country having biometric and demographic and other information. This will also develop a single window for personal identity validation.
Countries like Belgium, Chile, Germany, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Korea, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland have already introduced NPR while India introduced NPR-based on population and household listing data in 2011.
The major objectives of NPR are to create a national comprehensive demographic, biometric and administrative database for every for every resident individual of the country irrespective of their citizenship.