Abu Dhabi: The Emirates Identity Authority (Eida) pays more than Dh20 per card to two courier services (Empost and Aramex International) for delivering a National ID card to the applicants who pay just Dh10 for the same, the authority revealed in a statement on Saturday.
The statement came in response to recent complaints by residents that despite paying a courier service fee when applying for the card, some of them have been forced to collect their cards from post offices.
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As Gulf News reported on Thursday, Eida pays Dh10 per card as a charge for filling in the registration form (the same amount paid by the applicant) to Emirates Post so it did not save the money by distributing the cards through post offices.
The lack of courier service companies which can deliver huge volumes of ID cards in the country had forced Eida to distribute the cards through post offices, the authority said.
Batch by batch
The cards are equally distributed among the three companies engaged by the authority — Empost, Aramex International and Emirates Post, Dr Ali Al Khoury, director general of Eida, told Gulf News.
Empost and Aramex are the courier service companies whereas Emirates Post is the organisation providing postal services in the UAE.
Each company is given 100,000 cards each at a time and the next batch of cards are issued only after the companies complete the delivery of at least 80 per cent of the cards [already given to them], Al Khoury said.
With the number of people applying for ID cards increasing every month, the authority also said it has initiated a smart project working to expedite the issuance of the cards. The process would be further eased in the next few weeks, the statement said.
Gulf News earlier reported that residents have been complaining about the delay in delivery of their ID cards. Explaining the delay, the Eida said it was currently issuing 12,000 cards per day.
Other delays in delivery have occurred because of the limited delivery capacity of the three companies, as well as because of wrong telephone numbers, addresses and other personal information submitted by applicants.
With additional inputs by Binsal Abdul Kader, Staff Reporter
