New Delhi | Jagran News Desk: In what is seen as the first step towards a nationwide exercise to implement the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved funds to the tune of over Rs 8,500 crore for updating the National Population Register (NPR).
Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar denied the reports that the NPR will be used as NRC. "We have never said that NPR (National Population Register) will be used as NRC (National Register of Citizens). I completely deny," he said.
"Currently, there is no proposal to conduct nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC), on the basis of data collected through National Population Register (NPR)," he added.
"Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister distributed the cards as proof that people have been registered in the NPR... The total provision is nearly Rs 13,000 crore - Rs 8,750 for Census and Rs 3,941 crore for NPR... States are already using NPR data. This will be the exact exercise of the UPA. The same we are implementing it," he further said.
The NPR is a list of "usual residents" of the country. 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 data for National Population Register was collected in 2010 along with the houselisting phase of Census of India 2011.
The updation of this data was done during 2015 by conducting door to door survey. The digitisation of the updated information has been completed.
Now it has been decided to update the National Population Register along with the Houselisting phase of Census 2021 during April to September 2020 in all the states/UTs except Assam, according to the website of the Office of the Registrar General, and Census Commissioner.
A gazette notification to this effect was issued in August this year.
"In pursuance of sub-rule(4) of rule 3 of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, the central government hereby decides to prepare and update the Population Register....
"...and the field work for house to house enumeration throughout the country except Assam for collection of information relating to all persons who are usually residing within the jurisdiction of Local Registrar shall be undertaken between the 1st day of April, 2020 to 30th September, 2020," said the notification.
The NPR will be 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.
The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars.