Why in News?

• The government has decided to prepare a National Population Register (NPR) by September 2020 to lay the foundation for rolling out a citizens’ register across the country.

Highlights:

• NPR is different from both the decennial census and the NRC.
• It will be in pursuance of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.
• The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR. The decision exempts the state of Assam from NPR-2020.
• For the purpose of the NPR, a usual resident is defined as a person who has resided in a local area for six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
• The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars.
• It will be the next round of recording biometric and family tree details of Indian citizens.
• The exercise was conducted earlier in two phases in 2010 and 2015.
• Earlier, the roll out of NPR had slowed down due to overlapping with that of Aadhaar.