NADRA introduces the provision for ID cards to be issued conditionally without a birth certificate.

Authorities are working to reduce the 1.7 percent adult enrollment gap that still exists in Pakistan, which has obstinately remained after years of administrative changes and outreach initiatives. This marks a crucial new chapter in the country’s efforts to attain universal identity registration.

Officials acknowledge that the remaining shortfall is concentrated in the same demographic and geographic pockets that have historically been linked to inadequate documentation systems: women, low-income districts, and areas lacking functional civil registration infrastructure, even as they highlight the nation’s achievement of 98.3 percent adult registration. The biggest obstacle to first-time registration has been the lack of a digitized birth certificate, which has traditionally been the principal feeder document.

As the National Database and Registration Authority prepared its Annual Report 2025, it conducted a unique, extensive diagnostic exercise in light of this. Ten years of registration data were pulled and examined by NADRA for the first time in a decade, examining district-level discrepancies and demographic trends. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, the Election Commission of Pakistan, the National Commission on the Status of Women, and the National Commission for Child Welfare and Development are among the organizations whose missions touch on civil documentation; these organizations worked together to conduct the review. In a system that has long been regarded as one of the most digitally advanced in the area, these organizations collectively offered a data-rich picture of why some areas continue to lack documentation.

The results showed not only predictable administrative gaps but also deeply ingrained socio-cultural dynamics, according to officials familiar with the internal discussions: applicants whose family records are in NADRA databases but lack the feeder documents needed to activate them, men over 24 without documented fathers or siblings, and women unable to verify parentage. Due to necessary in-person biometrics that could no longer be completed, some of the most complicated instances involved parents who had passed away but whose digital records were still intact.

Upon presenting these data to the Minister of Narcotics Control and the Interior, the directives were clear. The ministry gave NADRA instructions to develop a time-limited, strictly regulated, and legally sound facilitation mechanism that would enable the most difficult-to-reach persons to join the identity system without sacrificing verification requirements. The structure, which was adopted by the NADRA Authority Board after weeks of drafting, was based on Section 5(1)(b) and Section 20 of the NADRA Ordinance, 2000, and was reinforced by Rule 8 of the NADRA NIC Rules, 2002—provisions that permit alternate verification routes in certain, extraordinary situations.

The resultant system, which is now in place and will remain so until December 31, 2026, establishes a crucial but limited route for new applicants without an electronic birth certificate. This effort is more forensic than promotional in nature, as identity can only be proved through current NADRA records and the required biometric verification of immediate family members who are already enrolled in the system, in contrast to earlier initiatives that depended on widespread outreach. This means that married or single women must rely on their recorded parents—and, if relevant, their husbands—to confirm their ancestry. The system requires at least one registered sibling in addition to recognized parents for men over 24, a precaution meant to fortify the chain of verification.

According to NADRA investigators, the internal discussions were heated. Reducing paperwork requirements could lead to identity fraud vulnerabilities, several officials said. Others contended that there were considerably more serious long-term consequences for leaving out the unregistered, especially women, including as exclusion from social support programs, inheritance claims, voting registers, and cross-border movement. This conflict is reflected in the last mechanism, which allows exclusions only in situations when parents or spouses are digitally documented but have passed away, and even then, only after document-based linkage and multi-layered verification checks.

NADRA has also waived fees for Teslin non-smart CNICs issued under the Normal category for applicants covered by this facilitation, which is a significant step towards lowering financial deterrents. For families residing in districts whose paperwork and income levels fall short of national averages, officials said the decision is an effort to eliminate the final obstacle.

However, the stakes are much higher than administrative ease. It is crucial and crucial to be accurate at the moment of registration since once parentage, date of birth, and place of birth are recorded into the National Identity System, they cannot be changed. This issue has been underlined by NADRA in its internal messaging, which encourage eligible candidates to come forward while pushing field officers to exercise heightened scrutiny.

Whether or not communities that have been cut off from formal documentation systems trust the state sufficiently to interact with it will be a major factor in the initiative’s success as the 2026 deadline draws near. For now, officials believe the process is the most thorough attempt in years to bridge Pakistan’s last identification gap, which is defined by the stories of those who have been left out of a system that was designed to count everyone, rather than by numbers.