NPR updation, Census from April

No papers, biometric needed; Rs12,696 cr allocated

National Population Register

It is a register of ‘usual residents’ of the country prepared at the local (village/sub-town), sub-district, district, state and national level under the Citizenship Act, 1955, and Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.

Usual resident

Any person who has resided in any area for six months or more, or who intends to reside in that area for the next six months; the term includes foreigners

NPR vs NRC

Unlike NRC, NPR is not a citizenship enumeration drive, as it will also include foreigners staying in a locality for six months or more

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 24

The government today approved Rs 12,695.58 crore for the Census-2021 and updating the National Population Register (NPR).

A decision in this regard was taken at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said no document would be sought for enumeration in the census or NPR. “It is going to be self-declaration, no document, no biometric is required for it,” he said.

He said the Cabinet approved Rs 8,754.23 crore for the Census-2021 and Rs 3,941.35 crore for the NPR.

The NPR, to be carried out along with the first phase of the Census-2021 from April to September next year, has no relation with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), according to the minister.

While updating the NPR, the government would neither seek any documents nor any biometric data. “Whatever the citizens will give, we will accept in the form of self-declaration,” he added.

However, according to the official website of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner “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”.

Javadekar said the exercise was first initiated in 2010 during the UPA regime and the then PM Manmohan Singh had distributed cards to those registered under the NPR. He said, “It was a good initiative… We are only updating it after 10 years,” he said.

The NPR was prepared in 2010 under the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, and Citizenship Rules, 2003. It was updated in 2015 by seeding it with Aadhaar, according to an official release.

The minister said various state governments, including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Odisha and Mizoram, have used NPR data to identify beneficiaries of various welfare schemes. The data would be used for schemes such as Ayushman Bharat, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ujjwala and Saubhagya for identifying beneficiaries, he added.

Asked about announcement by some non-BJP state governments, including West Bengal and Kerala, that they would not participate in the NPR exercise, Javadekar said, “All state governments have issued notifications in this regard and are already training their officials for the exercise.”

In July 2014, the then Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju had informed the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that “the government has now decided to create the National Register of Indian Citizens based on information collected under the scheme of NPR by verifying the citizenship status of all individuals in the country”. Javadekar, however, avoided a direct reply on the issue.