Row over NPR, NRC hits Bengal Census exercise

LAGGING Process of identifying enumerators yet to start after mob attacks on data collectors

KOLKATA: Amid growing tensions over the National Population Register (NPR) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) across West Bengal, preparations for the house-listing phase of the census of 2021 has been hit in the state, with district-level preparations running way behind schedule, officials said.

The process of identifying enumerators was originally supposed to be completed by December 2019. After the Trinamool Congress government in mid-december decided against collecting data for NPR during the house-listing phase of the census, West Bengal officials issued fresh orders mentioning only the Census and sought data from the districts by the end of January.

The process has been halted altogether after a series of mob attacks on government employees and workers of non-government organisations (NGOS) who travelled to villages to collect various data in January.

“All work related to census has been halted. Nothing is happening for the time being. No enumerator has been identified or appointed,” said Biswajit Majumdar, block development officer (BDO) of Raghunathganj II community development block in Murshidabad district.

On January 2, Majumdar had written to government officials of various departments within his jurisdiction to submit details of officers and staff at their respective offices by January 16.

“Identification of enumerators has been put on hold. Since the NPR has been linked with census and NPR is the first step towards NRC, we first need to get a clear idea on how to separate the two,” said the chairman of a civic body in Hooghly district who did not want to identify himself.

The Centre has asked all states to update the National Population Register, a database of all usual residents in the country, with the house-listing exercise of the Census. The National Regis