New Delhi: The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved over Rs 3,941.35 crore for updating the National Population Register, officials said.
Earlier, officials had quoted the census funds figure as that of the NPR. The updating exercise is to commence from April next year.
The NPR is a list of "usual residents" of the country. A "usual resident" is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.
The data for National Population Register was collected in 2010 along with the house-listing phase of Census of India 2011.
The data was updated in 2015 by conducting door-to-door survey.
The digitisation of the updated information has been completed.
Now it has been decided to update the National Population Register along with the house-listing phase of Census 2021 during April to September 2020 in all the states/union territories except Assam, according to the website of the Office of the Registrar General, and Census Commissioner.
A gazette notification to this effect was issued in August this year.
The NPR will be 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.
The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country.
The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars.
Kerala, West Bengal and Rajasthan halt NPR process
State governments of Kerala, West Bengal and Rajasthan had already suspended the compilation of National Population Register (NPR) considering 'apprehensions' of public that it would lead to NRC in the wake of the controversial citizenship act.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's office in a release said: "After considering the concerns raised in the wake of the 2019 amendment in the Citizenship Act, the State Government has decided not to cooperate with the process to update the NPR to facilitate the preparation of the NRC."
"The NPR also deviates from constitutional values," it added.
'No NRC link'
Meanwhile, the Home ministry officials on Tuesday said that the government has no plans as of now to carry out an exercise to prepare a NRC for the whole country on the basis of data to be collected during the updating of NPR next year.
The remarks by the home ministry officials came in the backdrop of the controversy over the NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
"There is no proposal as of now to prepare NRC on the basis of NPR data for the whole country," an official said.
