Jakarta authorities insisted on Wednesday that they would be ready to begin issuing a new electronic identification card, or e‑KTP, as planned on Aug. 1.

“Next week, we will install the equipment at subdistrict and urban ward offices,” said Purba Hutapea, head of the city’s population office. “But we are still waiting for the equipment to arrive.”

Purba said Jakarta, which will be the first to try out the new identity cards before they are rolled out nationwide, needed 707 specialized machines, including smartcard readers, an automated fingerprint identification system, fingerprint scanners, digital cameras, computers and backup power supplies, to produce the e‑KTPs.

He said his office had recruited more than 1,400 officers to work the machines from August to November at 267 urban wards. Each machine, which needs two people to run, can handle information from 150 residents per day. Purba said the registration, data processing and issuing of cards would take up to two weeks.

The city would shoulder “minimal costs” during the registration drive, he added, because the bulk of the funding would come from the Ministry of Home Affairs — which has allocated Rp 6.6 trillion ($770 million) for the e‑KTP program and other citizen registration initiatives.

Purba said the government had for the past two months been campaigning to introduce the new system to the public.

He said it might take three or four months to process the 7.3 million eligible residents in Jakarta.

Every resident should be sent a notification letter asking them to visit their urban ward or subdistrict office, bringing with them their old identity cards. Anyone above the age of 17 is required to have an identity card.

“The invitation will be sent based on the data we’ve obtained from the family card records,” Purba said.

Suyadi, an official from the Palmerah subdistrict office, said the procedures for making the e‑KTP were not too different from those of the old identity cards.

Officers record residents’ data, including fingerprints, signatures and digital photographs. Then that information is sent to the Home Affairs Ministry, which will issue the e‑KTPs and distribute them through urban wards.

Raydonnyzar Moenek, a ministry spokesman, said it expected the required equipment to arrive and be ready on time.

“God willing, it will be launched some time next week, and we’ll deliver it to all subdistricts on the same day,” he said.

He said the Indonesian electronic identity card would be a combination of those currently being used in other countries, although he did not elaborate.

“Our e‑KTP will be much more comprehensive than those now in use in China and India,” he said.