The Office of the Registrar General of India (RGI) will undertake the updation of the National Population Register (NPR), alongside the Census 2021, under the jurisdiction of the Home Ministry. The state of Assam will be the exception as it has recently completed the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
The NPR is a register that lists the “usual residents of the country”. A “usual resident” is an individual who has resided in a specific area for at least six months or intends to reside in a given location for the subsequent six months.
Legal Framework and Obligations
The creation of the NPR is governed by the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. It is obligatory for every “usual resident of India” to register in the NPR.
Historical Background
The initial data collection for the NPR started in 2010, simultaneous with the house listing phase of Census 2011. This information was subsequently updated in 2015 through a comprehensive door-to-door survey. Notably, the prominence of the NPR diminished with the introduction of Aadhaar as a critical medium for transferring government benefits in recent years.
Scope of the NPR
The NPR exercise is a nationwide endeavour conducted at various administrative levels: local, sub-district, district, state, and national. It involves the collection of demographic information and biometric data, with Aadhar details serving as the primary source for the latter.
In the 2010 project, the RGI solely collected demographic details. However, in the 2015 exercise, the data was enriched with residents’ mobile numbers, Aadhaar numbers, and ration card numbers. The 2020 exercise has seen the exclusion of ration card numbers but the inclusion of other categories.
Benefits and Advantages
The NPR, through streamlined data collection, holds significant potential to alleviate issues of inconsistent data across various platforms. For instance, a person’s date of birth may vary across different governmental documents—an issue the NPR could effectively counter.
Additionally, the NPR would facilitate better policy formulation by the government, enhance national security, and provide improved targeting of beneficiaries. It would also continue the process started by Aadhaar of reducing paperwork and bureaucracy. Importely, it would advance the government’s recently proposed idea of a ‘One Identity Card’.
| Year | Data Collected |
|---|---|
| 2010 | Demographic details |
| 2015 | Demographic details, Mobile Number, Aadhaar and Ration Card Numbers |
| 2020 | Demographic and Biometric details |
Privacy Concerns
Despite the numerous benefits, the NPR has raised concerns regarding the protection and confidentiality of the vast amounts of data collected.
NPR’s Relation with NRC
Contrary to the NRC, the NPR is not exclusively a citizenship enumeration exercise because it records foreigners residing in a locality for more than six months. The government’s insistence on implementing the NRC across the country and the subsequent updation of the NPR have stirred anxieties about the concept of citizenship.
This situation unfolds against the backdrop of the NRC in Assam, which excluded 1.9 million people from 33 million applicants. The nationwide enactment of the NRC could potentially only occur based on the forthcoming NPR. Once the NPR creates a list of residents, a nationwide NRC could proceed to verify and determine the citizens from that list.
Last Modified: February 6, 2024