This temporary pass would be issued only for voting at the upcoming presidential elections and the passes should be handed over on the day of voting itself, the EC said. It was reported that the Department of Registration of Persons had failed to issue identity cards for about three hundred thousand applicants owing to a shortage in paper sheets used in processing identity cards.
The Department said that it would be impossible to issue identity cards immediately since paper sheets were to be imported from Malaysia which cost around Rs. 1 million.