Final NRC draft to be out today

Tribune News Service

Guwahati, July 29

The final draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam will be published on Monday as per the directive of the Supreme Court that has been monitoring the entire process.

It has been a massive exercise involving over 55,000 government employees, besides a large number of technically qualified persons. Assam happens to be the first state in the country to undertake updating of the NRC of 1951. This has put the state under global lens as regards adverse fallout of the process.

Apprehension prevails among cross-sections of people living in Assam although CM Sarbananda Sonowal and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh have assured if any genuine Indian citizen’s name was left out, they could get themselves enrolled in accordance with the procedure prescribed by the apex court.

The NRC is being updated with the objective to make it easier to separate genuine Indian citizens and illegal migrants who sneaked into the state after March 24, 1971, (as per Assam Accord). Assam is plagued with the vexed problem of illegal migration from Bangladesh.

The Registrar General of India (RGI) has been carrying out the exercise to update the NRC of 1951 in Assam with March 24, 1971, as the cut-off date.

In all, 3.29 crore people living in Assam have applied for inclusion of their names in the updated NRC. The first part of the draft NRC published on December 31, 2017, contained of 1.9 crore Indian citizens living in the state.

The state government and the Centre are wary of a section of unscrupulous people/groups who may try to spread disharmony among people in the name of caste, religion over NRC updating.

About 30,000 central armed paramilitary force personnel have been deployed all over the state even as the Assam Police have carried out massive awareness campaign in coordination with district administrations.