Bangladesh targets One-ID roadmap within six months

 Bangladesh is moving to introduce a single, permanent and unique digital identity for every citizen from birth, with the proposed system to be known as the Unified Digital Identity, or One-ID.

The identity is planned to remain with a citizen throughout life and be used to access health, education and other public services.
The immediate target, however, is to finalise the implementation roadmap within six months.

Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Minister Faqir Mahbub Anam made the announcement at a press conference at ICT Tower on September 3, saying the government was pursuing a broad plan to bring citizen services under a single platform.
He said work on the Development Project Proposal, or DPP, for the “One Citizen, One ID and One Digital Wallet” initiative was progressing rapidly and that the government expected to take the project to the next stage within the next six months.

The Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha also reported on September 3 that Anam described “One Citizen, One ID, One Digital Wallet” as one of the government’s flagship initiatives and said the DPP would be completed very soon, with the aim of moving the project forward within six months.

One identity from birth
Information and Technology Adviser Rehan Asif Asad has described the concept as “One Citizen, One Digital ID, One Wallet.”
Under the concept, every citizen would have a single card serving as their digital identity and enabling digital transactions.
The exact information to be included in the new identity card, however, has not yet been finalised. The government is considering experiences from several countries, including the United States, Singapore, Estonia and India.

Information and Technology Division Secretary Mamunur Rashid Bhuiyan stated that, Bangladesh currently has multiple types of cards but lacks coordination among them. Some people have two birth-registration cards, while some have two passports. Bhuiyan said, “The new identity card will be unique and permanent. Even a newborn child will receive the card. No other card will be necessary.”
At present, children receive birth-registration certificates after birth and become eligible for the National Identity Card, or NID, at the age of 18.

Under the proposed One-ID system, a child would receive the digital identity from birth and use it throughout life to access health, education and other public services.

The system is also intended to reduce the need for citizens to repeatedly submit the same information to different government offices.

NID, family and farmer services
The ICT Division says the existing cards would gradually lose their separate functions once the unified identity system is introduced.
Services currently linked to the NID, Family Card and Farmer Card are expected to be incorporated into the new system. Officials, however, say the framework has not yet been finalised.

Bangladesh currently maintains several identity documents and identification numbers, including the NID, birth-registration certificate, passport, driving licence and Taxpayer Identification Number, or TIN.

Experts say effective interoperability among these databases could eliminate repeated collection of the same information from citizens and reduce administrative difficulties.

The World Bank’s D-STAR project documents also identify digital identity authentication, data exchange, interoperability and digital public infrastructure as important elements of Bangladesh’s digital transformation.

Tk 91.93 billion D-STAR project
The Information and Communication Technology Division has undertaken the Digital Service Transformation for Access and Resilience, or D-STAR, project to establish the permanent and unique identity system. The Bangladesh Computer Council will implement the project, with a proposed implementation period of 2026–2031. The proposal has been sent to the Planning Commission for approval.
According to the initial project proposal, identity cards are planned for around 180 million citizens, based on the latest census data of the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

However, the plan is to produce and print 200 million cards.

Each polycarbonate chip card is estimated to cost US$2, or around Tk 246, for production and printing. Distribution and delivery would cost another US$1, or about Tk 123 per card.

The combined cost of production, printing, distribution and delivery would therefore be approximately Tk 369 per card.
The total project cost has been estimated at Tk 9,193 crore. Of this, Tk 7,663 crore would come from the government and Tk 1,530 crore from a World Bank loan.

The largest allocation—Tk 7,380 crore—would go to card production, printing, biometric data collection, including fingerprints, and distribution.

World Bank documents describe D-STAR more broadly as a programme intended to expand inclusive and resilient broadband and digitally enabled services, while strengthening digital public infrastructure, data exchange and digital identity interoperability.

Family, farmer cards under one system
The government has separately planned Family Cards, Health Cards, Expatriate Cards and Farmer Cards.
The Family Card programme is estimated to cost Tk 1,906 crore for card preparation and data collection, while the Farmer Card programme is estimated at Tk 681 crore.

The costs of the Expatriate Card and Health Card have not yet been determined.

The government intends to bring services associated with these different cards under the broader unified digital identity framework in the future. However, the exact mechanism for integrating each service into One-ID has not yet been finalised.

Questions over cost amid fiscal pressure
The Tk 9,193 crore One-ID project is being proposed at a time when the government is facing financial pressure.
Some observers argue that the government is already facing substantial expenditure pressures across different sectors while revenue collection remains weak. They question whether such a large investment is appropriate at this stage.

Others argue that the project will be implemented over five years and that the government’s financial position may improve in the future.
For now, the government’s immediate priority is the DPP and implementation framework.

According to Minister Faqir Mahbub Anam’s announcement, the government aims to finalise the roadmap for “One Citizen, One Digital ID, One Digital Wallet” within the next six months.

The proposed system would fundamentally change how citizens establish identity and access public services—from birth registration and health and education services to digital transactions—through a single permanent digital identity.
//DBTech/IH/SME/MIS//