The government last year made the National Identity Card mandatory for receiving social security funds along with pensions and other government services and provisions. But after the decision was widely criticised, the government decided to defer the implementation of the decision.

The government in May last year had decided to make National ID compulsory to provide social security benefits and retirement pensions. On June 24, however, it announced that the decision would be implemented in 28 districts in the first phase from mid-July that year. But lawmakers criticised the decision in Parliament saying that the government was trying to make it mandatory without first issuing the National ID numbers and cards.

Also a petition was filed at the Supreme Court. On August 23, 2024, the court issued an interim order against the administration not to make it mandatory.

But the Supreme Court dismissed a writ petition against the decision to make the NID a must to access government services. In a directive issued on January 19, a full bench of Chief Justice Prakash Man Singh Raut and Justices Abdul Aziz Musalman and Nripadhwaj Niraula not only dismissed the writ but also issued a directive to implement the National ID card.

The ruling makes the National ID mandatory for accessing many of the government services.

The full text of the top court’s ruling was released on Friday. However, it is yet to be made public, says an officer at the NID and Civil Registration Department.

Advocates Ram Bahadur Raut, Bimal Pokharel, and senior advocate Dhruba Lal Shrestha each filed separate petitions challenging the government decision. The petitioners argued that the NID should not be made mandatory, ignoring their citizenship, as it would cause huge inconvenience to the general public.

According to Yubaraj Katel, director general of the Department of NID and Civil Registration, with the Supreme Court nullifying the petition against the NID they would now effectively work to make National ID mandatory for getting government services.

Amid these developments, NID has been successfully incorporated into the Nagarik App to provide additional services to the public.

The Supreme Court’s decision has paved the way for bringing the NID in wider use, but problems with its distribution persist.

The National Identity Card and Civil Registration Department recently released the progress report for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2025-26. According to the report, 16.54 million people have applied for the card so far, and 1.946 million have received them printed.

The department said that the printing of 6.046 million identity cards has been completed, and 5.53 million cards have been sent to the respective districts for distribution.

Katel sees two main major challenges in carrying out registration, processing, printing and distributing of the National ID cards. The first reason, he says, is the lack of manpower.

“There is a system to pay a daily wage of Rs600–Rs1,200 to those distributing identity cards, but as no one is willing to work for that pay, there are some problems in the distribution system,” Katel says.

Due to the lack of employment opportunities inside the country, thousands of people are going abroad daily for employment. Those people are not in their respective districts to collect the cards, Katel argues, explaining the slowdown in distribution.

“Due to the rule that the individual must be present in person to collect the ID, a significant number of cards have not been distributed even after they are printed,” Katel says.

Officials at the department assume that people may not have come to collect the copy since the identity card number itself serves almost all the purposes of the card. The government has made arrangements to provide the national identity card number on the same day the application for the identity card is successfully submitted.

Now the citizens who have applied for the card and are still awaiting their digital ID can also view their identification in the Nagarik App by entering their unique number.

The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) on January 9 made the NID compulsory to open a new bank account effective from January 14.

However, the reality is different.

Service seekers often complain that they are asked to submit a copy of citizenship certificate, driving licence or passport even after showing their NID card for certain official work.

Journalist Rudra Pangeni says officials at a bank asked him to produce copies of citizenship certificate and driving licence when he needed to open a bank account after the central bank’s January 9 instruction.

“Even though I showed the National ID card, the bank staff didn’t accept it and they wanted me to produce the citizenship certificate as well,” Pangeni told the Post. “I was carrying the citizenship certificate with me at the time, so I did not face any hassle, but there were other people who had a similar problem.”

If the National ID card is equivalent to citizenship as claimed by the government, Pangeni questions, why does it not perform the same work as the citizenship card?

The government has made NID cards mandatory even for acquiring a new mobile SIM card.

In a discussion at the parliamentary State Affairs and Good Governance Committee, Katel of the department announced plans to distribute national identity cards at the local level as well.

“The distribution process has been slow everywhere; however, we have planned to distribute the cards at the local level,” Katel told lawmakers at the House committee meeting. “We have launched a pilot project in Tanahun, and if it becomes successful we will expand it nationwide.”

The NID is a federal identification issued by the Department of National Identity Card and Civil Registration. It has a unique number assigned to each person and can be obtained by Nepali citizens based on their biometric and demographic data. The card features a unique number, photo, personal information, and bearer’s fingerprints.

The government officially launched the national identity card distribution campaign in 2018 by presenting a card to a 101-year-old woman in the Panchthar district and to government employees at Singha Durbar. It announced plans to digitally integrate the driving licence, vehicle ownership certificate, banking services, tax payment system, voter ID card, and social security system, among other things, into the NID.