NPR – HOUSE-TO-HOUSE VERIFICATION PLANNED

Prelims level : Governance- Policies, Schemes Mains level : GS-II Government policies and Interventions for Development in Various Sectors and Issues Arising out of their Design and Implementation.
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Why in News?

  • According to an official manual on conducting the fresh NPR exercise, verifying the details of all respondents through house-to-house enumeration will start by April 2020.

About NPR:

  • It is a Register of usual residents of the country.
  • It is being prepared at the local (Village/sub-Town), sub-District, District, State and National level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.
  • It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.
  • A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more.
  • To create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country.
  • Data for the NPR was first collected in 2010, and updated in 2015.

About the News:

  • The Indian Government proposes to update the existing National Population Register, which already has an electronic database of more than 119 crore residents, by verifying the details of all respondents through house-to-house enumeration.
  • The NPR exercise has become controversial because the Citizenship Rules 2003 link the Population Register to the creation of a National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC) or National Register of Citizens.
  • Coupled with the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which excludes Muslims, fears about an NPR-NRC have brought lakhs of people into chaos.

How it would be taken?

  • The manual states that in cases where date of birth or age was not known, the enumerator could help the respondent by “stimulating her/his memory” with reference to historical events well known in the area such as a “war, flood, earthquake, change in political regime, etc.”
  • The manual says that if the respondent does not know the age of any member of the household and probing also does not help in determining the age of that person, “you will have to estimate her/his age by using your best judgment.”

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