The National Database and Registration Authority temporarily suspended services at 68 registration centers in remote parts of the country on Thursday morning as part of scheduled technical maintenance affecting its satellite connectivity systems. The disruption took place between 8 AM and 9.30 AM, during which citizens at the affected centers were unable to access identity registration and related services.
According to the authority, the affected centers rely on satellite links to connect with NADRA’s central systems, and these links were unavailable for the duration of the maintenance window, halting operations at the impacted locations for roughly ninety minutes. The centers affected by the suspension are located in far flung and difficult to reach areas across Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit Baltistan, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, regions where satellite connectivity remains the primary means of linking local registration offices to NADRA’s central database given the absence of conventional internet or landline infrastructure in many of these locations.
NADRA apologised for the inconvenience caused to citizens and had earlier advised the public to plan their visits outside the affected time window wherever possible. The authority regularly schedules similar maintenance windows to service and upgrade its satellite infrastructure, which plays a central role in extending identity registration and verification services to some of Pakistan’s most remote regions. A similar maintenance exercise was carried out earlier this year in February, when NADRA temporarily suspended satellite based services at 108 centers across the same four regions for an equivalent ninety minute window, reflecting a recurring pattern of periodic upgrades needed to keep the authority’s remote connectivity systems running reliably.
Satellite connectivity has remained an essential part of NADRA’s operations in areas where terrestrial internet infrastructure is limited or unavailable, allowing citizens in remote districts to access core identity services such as Computerised National Identity Card registration, renewal, and family registration certificates without needing to travel to urban centers with more developed connectivity. As NADRA continues to expand and modernise its digital infrastructure nationwide, periodic maintenance windows of this kind are expected to remain a routine part of keeping satellite linked centers operational, with the authority typically providing advance notice to allow citizens in affected regions to plan their visits accordingly. Services at all 68 centers were expected to resume normally once the scheduled maintenance concluded at 9.30 AM.
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