In a bid to contain heavy influx of Bangladeshi migrants, the home ministry has decided to update the National Register of Citizens, 1951, in Assam as part of a pilot project to examine the feasibility of conducting the exercise in the entire state. It has been decided that 1971 will be the cut-off year for citizenship registration, which will take 1951 NRC or 1971 electoral rolls as a reference to update the NRC.
The Centre’s move of updating NRC may not go down well with the Opposition which may once again accuse the Centre of bending laws to shield illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.
The home ministry, which came out with its notification dated June 1, has decided to conduct the pilot project in two revenue circles namely the Chaygaon Revenue Circle in Kamrup district and Barpeta Revenue Circle in Barpeta district of Assam. The home ministry order has said that the enumeration in the two revenue circles shall take place from June 1 and will be completed by December 31 this year. Ministry officials said that the exercise is designed to address the issue of largescale influx of people from across the border and resolve the long pending conflict between the local indigenous people and the foreign migrants. “The government will invite applications from the residents claiming to be descendants of those included in the two documents. If the ancestry is established, the residents would be given a place in the NRC,” an official said.
The draft guidelines submitted to the Centre by the state government for updating NRC had proposed DNA testing as an option to be made available for descendants of persons living in Assam before 1971 to help prove their ancestry. “Those people who are living in Assam after 1971 and do not have records to prove their ancestry on the two counts may not find a place in the updated NRC,” the official said. The government has proposed the creation of a separate category for people who have migrated to Assam.