July 31 meeting to hammer out issues
SHILLONG: The fate over the implementation of biometric card enrollment for the National Population Register (NPR) – the ‘Aadhaar’ scheme, a unique identification project – in Meghalaya is still unknown after the KSU halted the enrollment process last year.
Even though the department has asked the East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner to prepare a new schedule for the enrollment process, which will begin in Shillong, a source, however, informed that the Deputy Commissioner first wants to clear all misunderstandings and misconceptions regarding the issue.
Sources recently said that a meeting will be held on July 31 where important matters pertaining to the National Population Register will be discussed.
The KSU had halted the enrollment process with the argument that it wanted mass mobilization on the topic and wanted the Government to ensure the implementation of verification measures while enrolling citizens in the scheme.
However, the department has conducted many awareness programmes on the scheme among the masses and has put a clause where local institutions will help in identification and verification of genuine citizens during the enrollment process.
Sources further said that their were certain issues of the NGOs which cannot be taken up at the level of Deputy Commissioner and it requires intervention of the state government.
The logic behind NPR is the fact that there is a genuine problem to identify Indian citizens from non citizens of India residing on Indian Territory due to illegal immigration from across the border and a clear picture of who claims to be Indian citizens can be seen through the NPR.
This implementation of NPR will then pave a way to accurately determine the citizenship of all usual residents in the Indian Territory through implementation of the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) where names and details of non-Indian Citizens, which include illegal immigrants, will not appear in the NRIC.
It may be mentioned that NPR is a ‘Register’ of usual residents of the country implemented under provisions of The Citizenship Act, 1955 and The Citizenship Rules, 2003