All you need to know about the National Population Register

Amidst the controversy regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act CAA and the National Registry of Citizens NRC Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday approved the allocation for the National Population Register NPR to be conducted during the 2021 Census Here is what the NPR is all aboutWhat is NPRThe NPR is a register of usual residents of the country A usual resident is defined for the purposes of the NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months The NPR will be updated along with house listing and housing census from April to September 2020The NPR was prepared in 2010 under the provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and Citizenship Rules 2003 which was subsequently updated in 2015 by seeding it with Aadhaar As the NPR allows including a foreigner who has been staying in the country for six months it is not a drive for citizen enumeration NRC if implemented avails one with a citizenship card with a unique identity numberWar of wordsAs many as ten states have declared that they will not implement NPR According to media reports the ten states are Andhra Pradesh Maharashtra Kerala Bihar Rajasthan Chhatisgarh West Bengal Punjab Madhya Pradesh and Odisha The NPR has also become a topic of debate topic resulting in a heated exchange of among the senior members of the ruling party and opposition members Former union finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram slammed the NPR calling it dangerous terms of the text and context of the data collection done in 2010 Charging that the BJP government has a sinister agenda he said if the BJPs motives are bonafide the Government should unconditionally state that they support the NPR form and design of 2010 and do not intend to link it to the controversial NRCOn the other hand Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Thursday slammed the opposition parties for allegedly misleading people and trying to create a divisive environment in the country over the Citizenship Amendment Act CAA and National Population Register NPR They were first opposing the citizenship act then they started a fake and fabricated narrative on National Register of Citizens NRC and now they are raising questions on NPR Their intention is to mislead people and create a divisive environment in the country for political gains Naqvi told ANINaqvi also asserted that the opposition parties are misleading people and spreading fake news because they are running out of credible issues to target the Central government adding that the amended citizenship law is to grant citizenship to the persecuted minorities in the neighbouring countriesWhat people can take from NPRHome ministry officials said that the NPR will have credible data of every family and individual strengthen the national security and can be used for transparent and efficient delivery of social benefits officials said on Tuesday During the NPR exercise no documents will be collected at the time of door to door enumeration During updating of the NPR no biometric data will be collected from citizens The aim is to create a credible register of every family and individual and improve the delivery mechanism of benefits under various government schemes and programmes officials saidBy linking the NPR with the registration of birth and death realtime population register will be available leading to registerbased census in the future they said The data can be used for transparent and efficient delivery of social benefits by linking it with various beneficiary oriented government schemes they said The benefits could be obtained in banking insurance services admission in school colleges and hostels scholarship distribution of seed fertiliser pesticide marketing credit registration of land property shares health and medical services public distribution system gender issues child marriage marital status maintenance of separated women The government will get data on employment disaster management disability old age pension and freedom fighterAnother official said the socio economic caste census SECC is based on the NPR data which was subsequently used for deciding different types of beneficiaries Household wise NPR data was used in better targeting of schemes such as Ayushman Bharat Jan Dhan Yojana Prime Minister Awas Yojna Ujjwala Yojana Saubhagya etcThe data for NPR was last collected in 2010 along with the house listing phase of the Census 2011 Updating of this data was done during 2015 by conducting door to door survey A gazette notification for the forthcoming NPR has been published by the central government in AugustWith inputs from AgenciesCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates