Assam govt moves Centre for NPR exercise in state

Guwahati: Ignoring the ongoing controversies on National Population Register (NPR), the BJP-led alliance government in Assam has moved the Registrar General of India (RGI), expressing its willingness to be the part of nationwide exercise of preparing the NPR in the state.

The Central government’s exercise to update the National Population Register — which has become controversial because of its links to a nationwide National Register of Citizens — will officially begin on April 1.

In a letter to the RGI, the General Administration Department (GAD) of Assam has stated that the NPR would help the government in formulating the policies of various government schemes effectively.

Pointing out that the RGI had excluded Assam from carrying out NPR exercise in view of the recent exercise of updating the National Register of Citizen (NRC), sources said that the state government was insisting on NPR exercise as the state was to go for general census in 2021.

Stating that the NPR exercise would compile various data of economic and social conditions of the people in the state, sources in the GAD said that it was necessary as it would help the government in planning welfare schemes of the government.

The NPR exercise is different from the decennial census. The NPR is a register of the “usual residents” of the country.

It is being prepared at the local (village/sub-town), sub-district, district, state and national level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.

It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.

A “usual resident” is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.

The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country.