New Delhi: The Centre on Friday has asked all the state governments for collective efforts to conduct Census of India and the National Population Register (NPR) work.
Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai chaired a meeting with all state government officials in New Delhi and conveyed the message. Barring West Bengal, representative of all other states took part in the crucial meeting over NPR at Ambedkar Bhawan.
The meeting called by Union Home Ministry discussed the modalities for the Census of India and NPR. Official sources said that the West Bengal government has given in writing its inability to attend the meeting.
Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla, Chief Secretaries and Census Directors of all states were present in the meeting. Sources said the meeting discussed the modalities for the house listing phase of the census and NPR, to be carried out from April 1 to September 30.
Though NPR aims to create a comprehensive database of every resident in the country, several political parties have opposed the move. NPR, according to the sources, would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars of the individual.
"We welcome Census of India and NPR. This initiative will give a proper identity to the genuine Indians," said Jagadish Prasad, general secretary of Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT). Interestingly, INPT has been opposing the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and they have appealed to the Centre to keep Tripura out of the ambit from the Act.
Sources said that all the state representatives have also given a presentation on their proposed strategy for the extensive work. It may be mentioned here that states have been notified with provisions related to NPR. It is being prepared at the local (village/sub town), sub-District, district, state and national level under provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rule, 2003.
The data for NPR was last collected in 2010 along with house listing phase of the Census 2011. Updating of this data was done in 2015 by conducting door to door survey.
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