NPR green-lit by Modi Cabinet; Rs. 3,941 cr budget approved
As nationwide protests over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) continue, the Union Cabinet on Tuesday green-lit the National Population Register (NPR). The NPR will pave the way for a nationwide NRC. The development comes two days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there has been no discussion on NRC since 2014. Here are more details.
According to reports, NPR was cleared at a high-level Union Cabinet meeting and will be conducted across India (barring Assam) between April and September next year. The data collection for NPR will be held ahead of the Census 2021, due to start from February 2021. Once completed, the NPR will lay the groundwork for the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC).
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar clarified that no documents or biometrics will be taken during the NPR process. He said a total budget of Rs. 13,000 crore has been allocated for NPR (Rs. 3,941.35 crore) and Census (Rs. 8,754.23 crore).
The National Population Register is a register containing details of all usual residents—a person who has resided in a local area for at least six months and will continue to reside in said area for the following six months or more. The NPR collects data on residents' name, current place of residence, DOB, etc., at the local (village/subtown), sub-district, district, state and national level.
Although the NPR is supposed to be conducted across all states, the governments of West Bengal, Kerala and Rajasthan have discontinued work on the register as mandated by the Centre. The decision was made in light of the uproar over NRC and CAA. Separately, Assam has been exempt from NPR as the NRC exercise was completed in the Northeastern state this year.
The NPR is viewed as the first step in the implementation of NRC. Although the NPR exercise itself does not mean that the NRC will be conducted, it does pave the way for it. This fear has caused the three states to block the NPR.
Data for NPR was first collected back in 2010 alongside the compilation of data for the 2011 Census. In 2015, the data for NPR was updated through door-to-door surveys and it has since been digitized. The upcoming NPR exercise will be conducted alongside the house-listing phase of 2021 Census of India in 2020.
The amended Citizenship Act will grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslim persecuted immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, provided they entered India on or before December 31, 2014. This is the first time religion has been made a criterion for the grant of citizenship. Critics say that CAA-NRC will work to target Muslims and strip them of their citizenship.
