Aizawl: Chief Minister Zoramthanga met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and appealed for clearing the NRC-like bill, aimed at detecting foreigners in Mizoram, that has been awaiting the Centre’s approval for months, officials said on Friday.
In the meeting on Thursday evening, Zoramthanga sought Modi’s intervention to ensure that the Mizoram Maintenance of Household Register Bill, 2019 is immediately cleared by the central government and implemented in the state that shares an over 700-km border with Bangladesh and Myanmar, they said.
He told Modi that the bill seeks to identify genuine residents of the state and will also help to check arms smuggling, drugs and human trafficking across the border, officials here said.
The Mizoram Maintenance of Household Register Bill, 2019 was passed by the state assembly on March 18 last year and the bill was sent to the governor for his assent.
Then governor Kummanam Rajasekharan had referred the bill to the Centre, official sources informed.
The chief minister had met Modi, seeking his intervention for the nod to the bill on December 5 as well.
Zoramthanga, who had introduced the bill in the assembly, had said that influx of illegal foreigners into the state has remained a serious concern and in many cases, the benefits of development and welfare programmes are “grabbed” by foreigners who clandestinely stayed back and assimilated with the locals. (PTI)
