The Union home ministry will soon address concerns relating to the possible misuse of the column “nationality as declared” in the National Population Register (NPR) form during the Census 2011 exercise in a meeting convened with chief secretaries of all states. The Bharatiya Janata Party fears that the same can be misused by illegal Bangladeshi migrants to gain citizenship.
The home ministry has called a meeting of representatives of all states on June 11 where it is expected to allay fears that nationality as declared in the National Population Register forms would not be allowed to get citizenship. This is for the first time that the National Population Register is being prepared in the country. A home ministry official said that the National Population Register is an identification project to be based on house-to-house enumeration.While National Population Register will help identify outsiders in future census operations, there is concern about identifying existing illegal immigrants. “Future entries into National Population Register would take place after verifying citizenship,” the official said. Neither Unique Identification (UID) project nor National Population Register would confer citizenship rights, sources said.