The notional ID

The flawed national ID card scheme suggests it was introduced for the benefit of certain vested interests.

That the new national ID card would turn out to be a waste of precious taxpayer money was a foregone conclusion when the government started distributing—read: Enforcing—it in 2018, with no preparation whatsoever. Having virtually no takers except for those who want to make new passports and those sitting for medical licence exams, two purposes for which the cards are mandatory, the so-called one-stop solution to identification that began with a big hullabaloo has fizzled out to nothingness. The national ID card imbroglio, in a country that has failed so much as to provide citizenship and identity cards to up to half a million of its legitimate citizens, exposes the casualness with which the Nepali government makes big decisions.