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fficials in several districts are saying that migrant workers who have returned home for Idul Fitri have not used their free time during the holiday to obtain electronic identity (e-ID) cards.

Millions have returned to their hometowns across the nation for Idul Fitri, which, according to officials, offered an ideal opportunity for the workers, many of whom were still registered as local residents, to update to an e-ID, as required by law.

More than 4,000 residents of Somagede in Banyumas, Central Java, worked outside the district, according to Somagede secretary Soeparsono.

“None of them have come to the office to have their personal data recorded for the e-ID while they are on Idul Fitri holiday here,” Soeparsono told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The district office was even opened over Idul Fitri on Aug. 18 and Aug. 19 with duty officers who were ready to accommodate any migrant worker who wanted an e-ID, Soeparsono said.

In fact, few of the thousands that Soeparsono expected to flock the district office for a new identification card had shown up in the five days since Idul Fitri.

He conceded that it was unlikely that those home for Idul Fitri would come this weekend, as the reverse exodus of travelers returning to their jobs in Jakarta and other big cities gets under way.

Around 70 percent of the residents of Somagede, or 21,000 people, have applied for e-IDs, according to Soeparsono.

Most of the remaining registered residents were migrant workers, he said, although there were also 652 elderly people, 105 people who were registered as residents twice and 1,954 residents with “unclear” data who had not applied for new identification cards, according to district records.

The problem of motivating people to apply for the cards has resisted the officials who were assigned to “socialize”, or promote, the program, Soeparsono said.

A similar situation was also evident in Bawang in Banjarnegara, Central Java. The district has reported that less than 20 percent of its 6,000 residents who work outside the province have registered for e-IDs.

Some registered residents who had returned home for the holiday said that they were too busy celebrating Idul Fitri to make a visit to their district administrative office and were unlikely to do so before returning to work.

“It’s fine for me to have the old ID card,” Tarwiyah, a resident of Watuurip subdistrict in Bawang, said.

Another resident of Watuurip, Kuseno, voiced a similar sentiment, although he said that he would apply for an electronic ID card sometime before the next presidential election in 2014.

“For now, the old ID card will do. It’s still valid, right? I really don’t have time to have my e-ID card processed,” Kuseno, who has been working in Jakarta for 10 years, said.

The e-ID tracks 27 different types of information, including the holder’s address, family members, age, employment, education and fingerprints.

Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi, who overseeing the implementation of the program across the nation, previously said that he would resign if the ministry missed its goal of registering 172 million citizens for e-IDs by the end of 2012.