Looking to Buy Bhutan ID Card? Check Requirements Here

Well now, you wanna get yourself a Bhutan ID card, huh? Sounds fancy. I ain’t never seen one myself, but I heard tell it’s like a little piece of paper or somethin’ that says who you are. Like, “Yep, this here’s old Bessie, she’s from… wherever Bhutan is.”

First off, what is this thing anyway? From what I gather, this Bhutan ID card, or the Citizenship Identity Card (CID) as them fancy folks call it, it’s like your proof you belong there. Like when you go to the store and they ask for your ID to buy beer, only this is for, you know, Bhutan. They say it’s an electronic ID card, which sounds mighty complicated to me. Like one of them newfangled gadgets. And you gotta be 18 to get one, they say it’s compulsory then, and it costs 100 ngultrums. Sounds like a lot of money to me, but what do I know?

Now, how do you get one of these things? Don’t go askin’ me, I ain’t got a clue! But I heard you gotta go to some office, the Department of Civil Registration and Census Head Office, they call it. Sounds like a mouthful, doesn’t it? Sounds like a big government building in the city, all official-like. You probably gotta fill out a bunch of papers, and answer a whole bunch of questions, and I bet they’ll want your picture too. Just like when you get your driver’s license, I reckon. And they got these other cards too, like special resident permits, for folks who ain’t exactly citizens but are allowed to stay there. Like them workers that come over from other countries to do the hard work.

And what if you lose it? Well, then you gotta go through the whole rigmarole again, I guess. They got a form for that too, a replacement form. More papers to fill out, more waitin’ around. And if you’re a Bhutanese livin’ far away, overseas like, then you gotta write a letter to the Director-General and authorize someone in Bhutan to do it for you, with a copy of your visa and picture. Seems like a whole lotta trouble if you ask me.

• They use these cards for all sorts of things. Like for keepin’ track of who’s who, for votin’ maybe, and for gettin’ services from the government.
• They even got a citizen services portal online, so you can do some stuff without goin’ all the way to the office.
• And they got a toll-free number you can call too, if you got questions. 1199 they say. Easy enough to remember.
• I also heard you might need to show a passport or voter ID, or even a birth certificate if you are young, and you might have to have a legal guardian with ya if you are not yet 18. And they say it has to be recent, whatever that means.
• They seem real serious about these cards. They collect them and distribute them and do the annual census too, countin’ everyone up to see who’s still around. They even deal with naturalization cases, that’s when foreigners become citizens, I think.

Why do you even need one? Well, if you plan on livin’ in Bhutan, you probably need one. It’s compulsory, they said. Or else, the government folks might not know who you are, and you might not be able to get the things you need, like healthcare or maybe even food stamps, if they have such a thing over there. And if you want to travel to Bhutan, they have travel rules too. Like, if you’re from India, you need a passport, or some other special travel document. They don’t just let anyone wander in, you know. Gotta keep things orderly.

So there you have it, that’s all I know about gettin’ a Bhutan ID card. It ain’t much, but it’s somethin’. Sounds like a lot of fuss and bother to me, but I guess that’s how things are these days. Everything’s gotta be official and documented. Can’t just go around bein’ anonymous anymore, not even in Bhutan, I reckon. If you need more information, go ask somebody who knows more than me, maybe go down to that government office and talk to them fancy folks. They’ll set you straight, I’m sure of it.

Tags: [Bhutan ID card, Citizenship Identity Card, CID, Bhutan, Documents, Identification, Requirements, Application, Renewal, Process]