Awareness on national population registration held

SHILLONG, JULY 19: Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma on Thursday said that the state government would soon notify the designated local traditional authorities to seek their participation in the process of the nationwide exercise on implementation of the National Population Registration (NPR) in the state.

“The role and involvement of these designated local traditional authorities in the exercise is very important in helping in the verifying process to determine on both genuine and non-genuine citizens in the state,” Mukul said while addressing a presentation function on the NPR on Friday.

Clarifying that the government is not in hasty to implement the NPR, Sangma said, “That is why the presentation is being organized to create awareness on the issue as how we do and go about implementing the exercise is important.”

According to Sangma, many a time people from outside have manage to get documents showing that they are genuine residents which is due to the absence of a proper system of verification such as the NPR. “This is the reason why the anti-infiltration in the border could only push back those doubtful citizens,” he said adding that to be able to prosecute the infiltrators it can be done only through proper mechanism in place.

Pointing out that Meghalaya has certain issues link to immigration, Sangma said, “The intended exercise will segregate both residents and non-residents citizens,” adding “This will ensure our demography is not diluted.”

Sangma further urged the civil societies attending the presentation to spread the awareness and message on the NPR to all concerns.

During the presentation, different civil societies and even members of political parties actively participated in the interactive session. KSU general secretary, A Jyrwa while stating that the union is not against the NPR however, demanded that the government should put on hold till mass awareness is created before going ahead with the exercise in the state.

Replying to this, Sangma while saying mass mobilization on any new strategy is vital has exhorted, “There is a need to sensitize our population on the proposed nationwide exercise to make them aware that on the purpose of how the people and state government can be benefited.”

Earlier, giving a brief presentation on the NPR, an official from the department concerned said, “The NPR is a register of usual residents of the country implemented under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship Rules 2003 (registration of citizens and issue of national identity cards).”
Stating that there is a genuine problem to identify Indian citizens from non citizens of India due to illegal immigration from across the border, he said, “The exercise will address this problem and the strategy of the government is to take into account all people residing in the Indian Territory (in a period of more than 6 months.”

Stating that a clear picture of who claim to be Indian Citizens can be seen through the NPR,” he said, “The implementation of the NPR will then pave a way to accurately determine the citizenship of all usual residents in the Indian territory through an implementation of the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) where names and details of non-Indian Citizen which include illegal immigrants will not appear in the NRIC.”

The official further stated that provisions of the citizenship Act and Rules give powers to the central government to law down the procedures which envisage the creation of the NPR as the first step towards creation of NRIC.

The other objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database in the country with full identification and other details by registering every usual resident in the country. This would help in better targetting of the benefits and services under the government schemes and programmes, improve planning and prevent identity fraud. – By Our Reporter