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Even though the Indian government has tried to keep the NPR and the NRC separate, most people see the NPR as an early stage for the NRC. The states of Kerala and West Bengal have refused to conduct NPR. The NPR or National Population Register is a record of all the usual residents in the country. This is a list of people who live in the country, including foreign nationals staying in a locality.
National Population Register (NPR)
- National Population Register or the NPR refers to the record that contains all the information about the usual residents residing in the country with a legal identity.
- The Ministry of Home Affairs defines a “usual resident of the nation” as someone who has lived in the same place for the past six months or plans to do so for the next six months.
- An enumerator is a person appointed to record the information given by the people and take the basic details. No document is collected during this exercise.
- Once the details of everyone in every village, every ward, every sub-district, every district, and every state are taken together, it constitutes the National Population Register (NPR).
- Section 14A was included in the Citizenship Act (1955) in 2004 of the Indian Constitution, demanding a mandatory registration of every person residing in India. The National Population Register (NPR) is updated to include the changes due to birth, death and migration.
- The national registration authority for this identity card shall be the Registrar General of India.
Is NPR connected to the NRC?
The law says that all Indian citizens must be updated regularly on the National Register of Indian Citizens. NPR records not only Indian citizens but also people from foreign nationals staying in a locality. NRC, or the National Register of Citizens, is collected by the Ministry of Home Affairs to record the citizens of India as well as identify and deport illegal immigrants. After the previous National Population Register (NPR) in 2010, no such record was made. Once a list of citizens has been made, the NRC can start verifying their identities.
A statement from the Home Ministry said that there were no plans for a countrywide NRC based on NPR data right now. In an interview with ANI, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah said that the NRC would not use NPR data. According to their 2018-19 Annual Report, Home Ministry officials say that the NPR is the first step toward adopting the NRC. The Home Ministry said that NPR was the best news source to record the short term demographic changes.
The house listings from the 2011 Census were used to make NPR. In 2015, it was decided that door-to-door surveys would be used to keep this data up to date. By adopting Aadhaar in 2016, the NDA government pushed NPR to the sidelines for giving out government benefits.
There are eight new data points included in the NPR documentation. One of them is the controversial “date and place of birth of parents”. To get a driver’s licence, you need your cell phone number, the dates and places where your parents were born, and the address of your most recent home. During the survey, the RGI needs this information to ensure that the Civil Registration System for birth and death certificates is always up to date.
Governments keep a database of information about their citizens, such as demographic information. The stated goal of the Home Ministry is to “establish a credible registry of every family and person” living in the country and “strengthen security and improve targeting of beneficiaries under different Central government projects,” according to a statement made after Cabinet approval.
Conclusion
Officials from NPR have also promised that their data will not be given to anyone else. The government hasn’t set up a clear plan for keeping this huge amount of data safe. Jurisdiction on issues like naturalisation, citizenship, and immigration, are provided on the Union list of the Seventh Schedule in the Constitution of India. The NPR is shrouded in controversies due to its implications on the NRC, but in its essence NPR is just a record of not only Indian citizens but also foreign nationals staying in a locality for the past or upcoming 6 months.
