As the updating of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is nearing an end, the state coordinator of NRC, Prateek Hajel, said the state government is set to meet June 30 deadline to publish the draft NRC.
The Supreme Court has set June 30 as the deadline for publication of the complete draft of NRC.
“We will be able to meet the timeline stipulated by the apex court,” said Hajela.
Interestingly, a unique process is underway to verify the genuineness of the applicants claiming to be descendants of the same ancestors whose names appear in any of the electoral rolls up to the midnight of March 24, 1971 or the NRC, 1951.
The methodology is known as Family Tree Verification process, which involves matching of all the family tree details submitted by applicants. This Family Tree Verification is being carried out under the Citizenship Rules, 2003, which provides for a District Magistrate’s Investigation.
“To claim the inclusion of a person's name in NRC, each applicant has filled up the family tree, called Manual family Tree (MFT) during the application process. It consists the details of different generations of the family comprising the names of the legacy persons and children and grandchildren of the legacy person. This MFT was manually filled up in an MFT form and the same was collected from the applicants during house-to-house visits by the verification team,” explained Hajela.
The basic concept of the Family Tree match is to ensure that the parental linkage claimed in the NRC update is flawless, he noted. It’s a first of its kind exercise undertaken in the country.
However, last December, when the first draft of the NRC, covering 1.9 crore persons, out of 3.29 applicants, was published, there was apprehension and furore in the state over names being left out. But Hajela is confident that when the draft NRC is published on June 30, completing the verification of the rest of the applicants, there should be no unrest in the state.
A software was designed to check all the application forms submitted by the applicants and generate a Computerised Family Tree. “The Manual Family Tree and Computerised Family Tree are being matched to identify any mismatch between the MFT and CFT. “But if there is any mismatch, an investigating officer is assigned to carry out the investigation of such cases at a designated venue called Family Tree VerificationCentre. The investigating officer’s findings will be vetted by district magistrate Authorised officers ,” he said.
With two months left for this mammoth exercise to complete, it remains to be seen whether the NRC will be a success or not. The BJP government in Assam is pinning its hope on the NRC to fulfil its promise of checking illegal immigration. On Wednesday, the cabinet committee on economic affairs has approved the revised cost estimate of the scheme for updation of NRC in Assam at a cost of Rs 1220.93 crore.