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The Union Home Ministry has convened a meeting on Friday, 17 January, to discuss the modalities for the 2020 Census and the National Population Register (NPR), officials said.
Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai will chair the meeting which will be attended by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla along with the Chief Secretaries and Census Directors of all states.
The meeting will discuss the modalities for the ‘houselisting’ phase of the census and the NPR, to be carried out from 1 April 2020 to 30 September 2020, a Home Ministry official said.
Mamata Banerjee was at Rani Rashmoni Avenue where the Trinamool students’ wing is agitating against the new citizenship regime.
On 11 January, when Prime Minister Modi met Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister urged the Prime Minister to withdraw CAA, and not to go ahead with the NRC and NPR.
A few state governments, including West Bengal, have declared that they will not participate in the NPR exercise now as it is a prelude to a country-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC).
As per reports, the Centre has asked all the states to participate in the discussion.
The opposition meeting that was held on 13 January, in the national capital, presided over by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, was attended by 20 opposition parties which passed a resolution calling for the repeal of CAA and stopping the NPR and NRC process.
The notification for the houselisting and NPR exercise came amid furore over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The rules have a provision for fine of up to Rs 1,000 against those violating it.
The data for NPR was last collected in 2010 along with the houselisting phase of the Census 2011. Updating of this data was done in 2015 by conducting door-to-door surveys.
While updating the register in 2015, the government had asked for details like Aadhaar and mobile numbers. This time, the information related to people’s driving licences and voter ID cards may also be gathered, the officials said, adding that PAN card details will not be collected as part of this exercise.
The provision of the Citizenship Act 1955 dealing with the NPR (Section 14A) compulsorily seeks to register every citizen of India and issue a national identity card to them.
Assam has been excluded because the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise has already been conducted in the state.
The Union Cabinet has approved Rs 3,941.35 crore for the NPR exercise.
(With inputs from The Telegraph, PTI)
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