0 Denpasar residents return to manual ID cards

Complicated and unclear procedures to obtain an electronic identity card (e-ID) have forced many residents of Denpasar to apply for the conventional paper ID cards that require manual procedures for their procurement and extension. Ni Made Lani, a resident of Denpasar, was among hundreds of people applying for new ID cards or extending their expired ID cards at Denpasar’s Population and Civil Registry office on Jl. Kapten Agung on Tuesday morning. 

“My ID card expired in December 2012. I have been applying for an e-ID for so long without any news from the local banjar [village] office. So, I think it will be best for me to apply for the old-style manual identity card,” Lani said. Lani said she needed the ID card to take care of her banking, renew her passport and other personal and business matters. Denpasar is, in fact, among several cities and regencies in Indonesia that have been designated as pioneer locations for the massive introduction of e-ID. 

The trial for the e-ID project started in 2009. The realization of uploading the data manually into an electronic format for all eligible residents initially commenced in August 2011 but had to be postponed pending the arrival of the necessary electronic and computer equipment from the central government. Prior to the implementation of the e-ID card program, every district in Denpasar was allowed to process ID cards manually for its residents. However, starting in 2011, all ID card processing has been centralized at the Denpasar civil registry office. 

Once the applicants’ personal information has been processed and entered, the information is sent to Jakarta. Once processing and printing is complete, the e-ID are sent back to Denpasar from Jakarta. Like other pioneering cities and regencies, Denpasar failed to reach its target of completing all e-ID processing by December 2012. In mid-2012, the central government had already delivered 310,000 e-ID to Denpasar. However, much of the e-ID data contained inaccurate information, with the home addresses incorrect for around 246,962 of the people. 

Nyoman Suarjana, head of the civil registry office, tried to defend the policy saying that the provincial and regional officials were working in accordance with guidance from the central government. “The Denpasar office has frequently reported problems that have emerged during the data processing but we have never obtained any positive response from the central government,” Suarjana claimed. He went further, saying the committee workers from the central government were lacking in professionalism. 

“They [committee members] have never given us any feedback or responded to the questions and problems occurring at provincial and regional levels,” he added. Until mid-January 2013, Denpasar mayoralty had not received any clear information on the delivery time for the e-ID cards from the central government.

source : bali daily