PETALING JAYA: The penalty for lost identity cards will be maintained at a minimum of RM100, said National Registration Department (NRD) deputy director-general (operations) Datuk Mohd Zahari Hassan.

“MyKad is a basic and very important document. We don’t intend to increase the penalty for lost MyKads at the moment,” he told reporters yesterday after the launch of the Distributed Printing Project Hub (Hab DPP) for Kuala Lumpur.

“In fact, we did a revision in October 2015. Any decision to raise the penalty will need approval from the Cabinet,” he said when asked to comment on the Immigration Department’s proposal to raise the penalty for those who “habitually” lose their passport.

It was previously reported that the Immigration Depart­ment would soon impose a fine on those who lose their passport due to carelessness, with the proposed penalty starting from RM200.

Those who lose their passport for the second time would reportedly be fined RM500, while losing it for the third time would cost RM1,000. All these were on top of the passport replacement charge.

Mohd Zahari said: “Those who lose their MyKad for the first time will have to pay RM100 as the processing fee, on top of the RM10 application fee.”

“The processing fee will be increased to RM300 for the second time.

“Losing it for the third time or more will incur a RM1,000 processing fee,” he added.

Those who lose their MyKad for the second time will also need to lodge a police report, while those who lose it for the third time or more will be subject to an NRD investigation.

On the issue of lost MyKad, Mohd Zahari said the number had been trending downwards for the past four years.

In 2016, a total of 422,029 lost cards were reported, down from 426,992 the previous year. In 2014, the figure was 430,566, down from 447,679 in 2013.

As of May 31 this year, the number of lost cards stands at 169,381.

“The numbers are not worrying as we have about 30 million MyKad holders,” said Mohd Zahari.