Panchthar, November 19 The distribution of national identity cards began from Panchthar headquarters Phidim today. Minister of Home Affairs Ram Bahadur Thapa inaugurated the national identity card distribution programme by handing over the card to the eldest citizen in Panchthar — Bhagawati Devi Bhandari, 101, of Phidim Municipality. With this, Bhandari has become the first person to hold the National identity card. Similarly, Home Minister Thapa became the second person to hold the NIC. Centenarian Bhandari had handed over the card to Minister Thapa. National Identity Card Management Centre under the Ministry of Home Affairs had organised the programme to distribute NIC. Province 1 Chief Minister Sherdhan Rai and Province Minister for Financial Affairs and Planning Indra Aangbo, among others, were present at the programme. National Identity Card Management Centre had collected details of 52,754 people from Panchthar and 3,500 government employees from Singha Durbar for national identity cards. NICMC said card distribution would continue as printing of the ID cards was completed along with the collection of details. Earlier, the government had decided to distribute NIC to 117,000 individuals, including 110,000 locals from Panchthar and 7,000 government employees in Singha Durbar, in the first phase as pilot project. “We started ID distribution from Panchthar in line with the government decision,” said NICMC. According to NICMC Director General Dipak Kafle, they will distribute the ID card in 15 districts, including Jhapa and Sankhuwasabha of Province 1, Mahottari and Saptari of Province 2, Lalitpur, Chitwan and Rasuwa of Province 3, Tanahun and Syangja of Gandaki Province and Kanchanpur and Achham of Far-west province in the current fiscal. The centre had set the target of distributing national ID card to every citizen within three years, Kafle said.