PHIDIM: Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa today inaugurated the distribution of national identity cards from Panchthar district by handing the first card to 101-year-old Bhagawati Devi Bhandari of Phidim Municipality-4.

Speaking at the event, Minister Thapa said the national identity card is linked to the establishment of good governance, stability and prosperity in the country.

"It will be difficult to find out what ingredients are needed to develop a country unless there is integrated information system. Country's development will be accelerated by making development plan based on a database," he said.

As the Home Minister said, the national identity card holds a significant meaning in addressing aspirations of the citizens for development.

He further said, the process to distribute the national identity card in all districts has begun and some difficulties have surfaced in implementation of the new system.

On the occasion, Province 1 Chief Minister Sherdhan Rai said, it was a matter of pride that the national ID card distribution kicked off from the province.

Secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs Prem Kumar Rai informed that distribution of national ID card would start in all districts within two years.

The national ID card consists of biometric information of the cardholders as well as their information on land, education, government services among others.

Meanwhile, the government aims to distribute the machine-readable card to all Nepali citizens within three years.