GUWAHATI: Assam is to miss the Supreme Court set deadline for publication of the final draft of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam on June 30, thanks the disruption caused by the flood in the state this month. The Supreme Court of India which is monitoring the entire process.
The first wave of flood which has hit the state this month has affected the NRC updating process in NRC Seva Kendras (NSKs) in at least five districts causing delay to the process in the eleventh hour. The state coordinator of the NRC updating process, Prateek Hajela informed the media here that it would not be possible for publication of the final draft of the NRC on June 30 as scheduled earlier.
He informed that the Supreme Court of India would be informed on July 2 about the difficulties faced by the NRC state coordinator and his team in completion of the final draft of the NRC before June 30.
The first draft of the updated NRC was published on December 31, 2017, with 1.90 crore names out of the total applicants of 3.29 crore. The NRC of the 1951 is being updated in Assam with March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date under the supervision of the Supreme Court.
The NRC is the register which contains details of all Indian citizens. It was prepared in 1951 after the conduct of the Census of that particular year. The Register included particulars of all the persons enumerated during that Census. Now NRC is being updated in Assam. It means the process of enlisting the names of those persons in NRC Assam list whose names appear in 1951 NRC and Electoral Rolls upto 24th March (midnight), 1971 or any of the admissible documents stipulated which would prove their presence in Assam or any part of India on or before 24th March 1971. The provisions governing NRC updation in Assam are The Citizenship Act, 1955, and The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity cards) Rules, 2003. The modalities for NRC updating have been developed jointly by the Government of Assam and the Government of India.
Meanwhile, the Centre is deploying 100 additional companies of CRPF in Assam as against 150 companies sought by the state government in order to help the state police to maintain peace. Law and order in the state in the wake of publication of the final draft of the NRC, an official source said here.
Senior CRPF officials based in the North-eastern Sector headquarter of the force have briefed the Assam DGP, Kuladhar Saikia to discuss about the preparedness on part of the central paramilitary force to tackle any law and order situation arising in the state post publication of the NRC final draft.
Meanwhile, teams of senior government officers headed by the State Chief Secretary and Director General of Police have already held three meeting with the Deputy Commissioners and Superintendents of Police of different districts in Bongaigaon, Mangaldai and Nagaon to review the situation . The plan is to cover all the districts before the publication of the final draft of the NRC.
The DCs and SPs are using their resources and manpower to launch such awareness drives, while, the advertisements issued by the NRC Coordinator’s Office have also been circulated among the people. The publication of the draft is not the end of the road for any Indian citizen as they will be given enough scope for filing claims and objections, he added.
The DCs and SPs have been asked to augment ground level intelligence gathering and to take the help of the village heads , panchayat members and VDPs in this regard. They have also been asked to prepare lists of potential trouble mongers so that surveillance can be maintained over them.