First Step Towards Pan-India Citizens’ Register: National Population Register To Be Prepared By 2020

In a bid to roll out a citizens’s register across the country, the government has decided to prepare a National Population Register (NPR) by September 2020, reports The New Indian Express.

The NPR, which will be a list of ‘usual residents’ of the country, will reportedly be the basis for preparing the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC), a Pan-India version of Assam’s National Register of Citizens.

A usual resident, for the purpose of NPR, is defined as a person living in a local area for past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.

"In pursuance of sub-rule(4) of rule 3 of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, the central government hereby decides to prepare and update the Population Register," said a notification issued by Vivek Joshi, Registrar General of Citizen Registration and Census Commissioner.

"And the fieldwork for house-to-house enumeration throughout the country except for Assam for collection of information relating to all persons who are usually residing within the jurisdiction of local registrar shall be undertaken between the 1st day of April, 2020 to 30th September, 2020," the notification said.

Assam is being excluded from the NPR as the state is already going through the exercise of publication of National Register of Citizens.

As per the report, the objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database, containing demographic as well as biometric particulars, of country’s every usual resident.