GUWAHATI: On the eve of publication of the first draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday night informed that vigil had been mounted on the social media to thwart any attempt to create any problem in the state over the NRC updating process that is being carried out under the monitoring of the Supreme Court.
During interaction with the media here, Sonowal said special arrangements have been made to monitor the social made while making an appeal to the media to highlight that it would be only the first draft involving just over two crore people and there would be very meticulous provision for enlisting names of any genuine India citizens whose names may no feature in the first draft. He said though there was a target to enlist 2.39 Crore people out of the total 3.29 crore applicants.
“Genuine Indian citizens need not worry at all even if their names may not feature in the first NRC draft for certain technical reasons. Our officers will go out of the way to help them enlist their names in the later stage,” Sonowal said.
He said though there was not inputs about possibility of eruption of any untoward situation in the wake of publication of the first draft of the NRC in the midnight of December 31, adequate security measures in place as precautionary measure. “It is always better to be on alert,” he said.
He said NRC of 1951 was being updated only in Assam for the first time among all the states in the country and the it had been a first time experience for the officials involved in it. “We have to complete the process sans any errors under the supervision of the Supreme Court. Almost entire state machinery has been focused in the process of the NRC updating at the cost of implementation of many development programmes as the state government is focused on bringing out an error free updated NRC,” the chief minister said.