Enrolment for Aadhaar card does not guarantee citizenship: Goyal
SHILLONG: Several pressure groups on Wednesday expressed reservations over the proposal for Biometric enrolment under the National Population Register (NPR) in Meghalaya and asked the State Government to convince the Centre and adopt a policy similar to what was done in Assam where the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was implemented before Biometric enrolment.
Emerging from a consultation meeting on NPR convened by the East Khasi Hills district administration at the Soso Tham Auditorium here, HNYF general secretary Sadon K Blah said, “The National Register of Citizens would be vital in detecting illegal immigrants and would also help to determine genuine citizens residing in the State.”
The NRC will provide authorities with accurate figures on the number of illegal immigrants in the State, he said, adding, “Meghalaya and Assam share similar problems when it comes to the issue of illegal immigrants as both have porous borders with Bangladesh.”
KSU general secretary Auguster Jyrwa spoke on the possibility of people from outside managing to register themselves under the NPR and get permanent Indian citizenship.
He also stated that it would an impossible task to detect illegal immigrants from Bangladesh due to their resemblance with genuine Indians from the mainland.
Meanwhile, FKJGP president Joe Marwein expressed fears of data leakage and wanted to know if the data stored in the NPR would be foolproof.
Earlier, making a detailed presentation on the NPR, East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal asserted that there was no need for any confusion since ‘enrolment for the Aadhaar card does not entitle an individual to get Indian citizenship’.
Goyal said that NPR creates a comprehensive identity database with full identification and other details by registering each person to help in better targeting of the benefits and services under various government schemes/programme, improve planning and security of the country and prevent identity fraud.
Goyal also spoke about the linkage of NPR with various schemes like banking insurance services, students scholarships, registration of births and deaths, registration of land property shares, all government schemes, pensions, admission in schools, colleges and hostels, health and medical services, food security, PDS and others.
He informed that the biometric data collected in NPR, which includes photographs, ten fingerprints and iris scan of Indian residents above five years of age will be sent to UIDAI for issue of Unique ID Number (Aadhaar No.).
Stating that the Aadhaar card would be linked to Government schemes and therefore it was imperative that the scheme is implemented in the right earnest, Goyal stressed on the involvement of the Headmen and Nokma at the locality level to ensure full coverage in the NPR process and also to supervise and authenticate the data collected from residents.
According to the Deputy Commissioner, the Union Government had taken Meghalaya as a special case in the DBTL (Direct Benefit transfer of LPG) since Aadhaar Card had not been implemented in the State, but feared that the Centre may not agree to similar exceptions in other schemes.
Goyal also feared that implementation of schemes may be affected in Meghalaya since the Central Government is linking all future schemes with the Aadhaar card.
Goyal also informed the gathering that Chief Minister Mukul Sangma had made it very clear that they would not go ahead with the proposed exercise of biometric enrolment until the people were convinced.
Rangbah Shnong body boycotts consultation meet
The Synjuk Ki Rangbah Shnong (SKRS) boycotted the consultation meeting on the proposed Biometric enrolment for the NPR on Wednesday.
The SKRS had taken the decision of not being part of this kind of exercise until the State Government presented a clear picture on the status of the relationship between the State Government and Rangbah Shnong.
The Synjuk also wanted the State Government to spell out the powers and functions of the Dorbar Shnong and Rangbah Shnong.
East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal, however, sought to clear the air saying that the involvement of the Rangbah Shnong in the NPR exercise had no connection with the December 10 ruling of the High Court of Meghalaya.
According to Goyal, on October 7, 2013 the State Government, through the General Administration Department (GAD), had notified that the Rangbah Shnong would be appointed as ‘supervisor’ for the biometric enrolment.
Earlier, the pressure groups were of the view that the involvement of the Rangbah Shnong in the NPR enrolment exercise was critical since they would be able to identify genuine residents of their respective localities.
The pressure groups were also curious to learn whether the involvement of the Rangbah Shnong in the NPR exercise would be a violation of the court ruling.