Assam citizenship database awaits order on inclusion of Bangladeshi Hindus

GUWAHATI: The Assam office of the National Register for Citizens (NRC) is yet to receive orders regarding the inclusion of Hindu Bengali nationals from Bangladesh after March 24, 1971, in the ongoing updation of the NRC, NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela said.

The BJP government at the Centre recently tabled the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, making nationals of various countries, including Bangladesh, eligible for acquiring Indian citizenship. The Bill introduced in Lok Sabha proposes to make minority communities such as Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan eligible for applying for Indian citizenship.

"The NRC process is monitored by a Supreme Court directive. We have received over 68.23 applications for enrolment in NRC. There are three stages of verification which include physical verification of the applicants, office verification of the documents submitted and making of family tree which will detail the father and forefathers," Hajela said.

About 97 per cent of physical verification is already completed, he said. “We have started the process of drawing up a family tree. To verify documents, we have sent them to 28 states but the response is not very encouraging. We have requested the chief secretaries of those states to expedite the process.“

Hajela added that the Centre has sanctioned Rs 288.18 crore for the NRC process, out of which only Rs 4 lakh was yet to be utilised. "We have sought an additional fund of Rs 504.82 crore to complete the process."

Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal had recently apprised Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh about the paucity of funds for the NRC updation and demanded financial assistance. A Division Bench of the Supreme Court headed by Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Ronginton F Nariman while responding to the status report filed by Hajela, directed that the NRC work should be completed "as soon as possible".

The draft NRC was scheduled to be published on January 1, 2016 and the final NRC on March 31 but is expected to take more time.