Abu Dhabi: Officials are calling upon residents to register for their national ID card during the summer, a lean period.
According to Dr Ali Al Khoury, Acting General Manager of the Emirates Identity Authority, about six million UAE residents have not registered for ID cards yet.
"But all of them can complete the registration smoothly thanks to a new hassle-free system", Dr Al Khoury said.
With the pre-registration process being done at typing centres and the opening of new registration centres, the daily registration capacity across the country will increase up to 20,000 from the previous 7,500, he said.
"The latest figures suggest that the UAE population is 8.2 million [both Emiratis and expatriates] and more than two million residents out of them have already registered for ID cards," the official said.
But he did not reveal the number of Emiratis and expatriates who have already registered for ID cards.
However, the Emirates Identity Authority (Eida) earlier revealed that more than 90 per cent of Emiratis had already registered for ID cards.
The rest of them were students, diplomats, business persons or professionals living abroad, patients and elderly people living in remote areas, etc, the authority said.
Audio: Radio 2 reports on Emirates ID
So it is understood the number of Emiratis among the (approximate) 6 million non-registered residents is likely to be very small and most of them would be expatriates. As per the law, the deadline for expatriates is December 31, 2010.The deadline for Emiratis expired on March 31, 2009.
Al Khoury said the residents not having ID cards would be denied access to some government services gradually.
Mandatory
As Gulf News reported on July 28, the authority had written to the Ministry of Interior to make the ID card mandatory for obtaining traffic services in Abu Dhabi emirate soon and subsequently in Dubai and Sharjah.
It was already made mandatory in four northern emirates — Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Ajman and Umm Al Quwain — in November 2009.
Although the centre has a daily registration capacity of 3,000, only about 1,000 people turn up during this [summer] lean period, according to Eida.
Martin Dunning, 55, from New Zealand, said he had visited the centre without an appointment on Tuesday and registered within a few minutes.
New system: Application procedure
1. Do the pre-registration process (PRP) at a certified typing centre. No need to visit in person for this purpose but a representative or company PRO can do it by submitting the original passport of the applicant.
2. Typing centre will fill out the application and give it to the applicant with a bar code, after receiving the fee. (Dh 100 per annum for the card for expatriates and Dh70 service charge, including typing and courier charges)
3. Within 48 hours of completing the PRP, you will receive an appointment by SMS.
4. Visit the Eida centre on the given time to complete the registration with signature, fingerprinting and taking photograph.
5. You will receive the ID card by Empost courier.
To contact Eida, phone: 600 523432 Web: www.emiratesid.ae
Have you registered for your ID card? If not, why? What are the issues being faced?
