Verification of WB migrants’ identities for Assam NRC to take couple of months more

The verification of identities of the people, who have migrated from West Bengal to Assam, for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) may take another couple of months to be completed, a senior state government official said here.

The process is a “long-drawn one” and reports on the NRC verification from officers concerned are being awaited, he said. “There is not a single paper lying with us right now.

All those which were not sent for updating the NRC are awaiting verification. It (verification) is a long process and we are working on it. It may take another couple of months to be completed,” the official told PTI on condition of anonymity.

He said that there was pressure from the Assam government in returning the NRC verification documents expeditiously.

West Bengal is the biggest defaulter in the NRC verification process, Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India Sailesh, who is overseeing the entire exercise of the NRC, had said last week. “The largest number of documents that we have not received among all states was from West Bengal. We had to struggle. We had to follow up. But we have not received substantial number of documents from West Bengal. The response (of West Bengal) in terms of results was not satisfactory,” Sailesh had said.

According to the state government official, nearly 15,000 responses were sent to the Assam government out of the total about 1.14 lakh requests and “we are working on the rest”.

The NRC verification is faster in areas like Kolkata but is “pretty slow” in the rural areas, he said.

Stating that less manpower is a reason for the delay, he gave the example of cases which needed to be verified from the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education.