The deck has been cleared for the much awaited biometric national identity card that replaces the citizenship paper and will carry personal information of every citizen.

A meeting of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee on Thursday gave its nod to the Home Ministry to go ahead with the project that was stalled by the committee five months ago.

There were complaints registered at the PAC about irregularities in the project. The PAC had formed a subcommittee headed by lawmaker Ramhari Khatiwada to probe if there were irregularities while choosing Safran Morpho, the French-based firm awarded to undertake the ID card project. Morpho had got the highest marks in technical evaluation among six international bidders.

Several lawmakers, however, expressed concerns over the security of the data to be stored in the national ID management centre. They urged Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to arrange for security printing in Nepal.

“We have set up enough gate keeping measures on data security,” said Dinesh Bhattarai, chief of the project. Nepali engineers and technicians would be in charge of the data, he added.

PM Oli has urged all to cooperate in the process as the government had invested much time and money in the project. The ADB-funded project will initially produce 110,000 unique identity cards.