PRESIDENT MAY BE THE FIRST INDIA CITIZEN IN NPR 2020
NEW DELHI: The first citizen of India, President Ram Nath Kovind, will likely be the first to be enrolled in the National Population Register (NPR) on April 1 when the exercise starts across the country, senior officials who did not want to be named said.
The President’s House did not comment. And although the President being the first to be enumerated is not something new, “given the controversy created around NPR... it sends out a strong reassuring message to people at large”, an official quoted above said on the condition of anonymity.
In a related development, the law ministry, in response to a query from the Registrar General of India (RGI), said that the government “need not notify” the scheduled set of questions for the NPR. The NPR database was created in 2010 and was updated in 2015-16.
Notifying NPR questions is not provided for in the law unlike the Census, the ministry is understood to have told the RGI. Given the concerns around the
NPR, the RGI had written to the law ministry seeking its opinion on whether the questions needed to be notified, a second senior official who did not want to be named said.
The NPR, a biometric database of all people living in India, has been seen by some opposition parties as a precursor to the controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC), which is aimed at identifying foreigners living illegally in India for their possible deportation.
Some states have protested the proposed questionnaire for the NPR, which includes queries such as date and place of birth of an individual’s parents, the mother tongue and previous address. Opposition-ruled states like West Bengal, Rajasthan, Kerala and Odisha, among others, have questioned the reason for seeking such information that apparently has no direct connection to policy framing, but appears to be linked to the creation of the NRC.
The government said in Parliament on February 4 that no decision had been taken to prepare a nationwide NRC. It was the first time such an admission was made in Parliament. It also claimed that when data for the NPR is collected between April and September, no documents will be sought nor any verification be carried out to identify individuals whose citizenship is in doubt.
Indicating that the government was in no mood to buckle down under opposition to the NPR, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has defended the inclusion of contentious questions in the NPR before Parliament. He told those opposed to NPR “not to spread misinformation”.
Delivering his reply to the debate on the motion of thanks to the President’s Address to Parliament on February 6, Modi told the Rajya Sabha that language data was being sought in the NPR questionnaire to understand migration trends that would, in turn, help the administration tailor schemes, for instance, opening an Odiya-medium school in Surat to cater to the needs of children of migrant workers.
He also told the House that NPR data was used for development schemes like the PM Awas Yojna, the government’s affordable housing programme. The Prime Minister also underlined that the NPR was introduced in 2010 when the Congess-led United Progressive Alliance was in power. The Opposition was deliberately opposing the NPR now for petty political gains and putting the nation at risk, he said.
The NPR database will contain details of about 1.3 billion people who live in India. It will be updated with individual Aadhaar, passport, driving license, mobile phone and election photo-identity card numbers, among others. About eight additional data points per person will be added on to the already 15-point database of the NPR.
“Providing these details, however, is voluntary,” a third senior official said. Earlier, allaying fears of exclusion, minister of state for home G Kishan Reddy had clarified that proving the additional details like Aadhaar and phone numbers and so on was voluntary and people will not be forced to reveal such information.