Assam: Final NRC list to be released today

It will identify the bonafide citizens of the state.

The list is expected to be released at 10.

"The list would be available online by 10 am and those who do not have internet connections can go to Seva Kendras set up by the state government to check their status," a senior officer in the Home Ministry told NDTV.

What did the Chief Minister say?

In view of the final publication of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to be published as per the direction of the Supreme Court of India on August 31, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal urged upon the people of Assam to maintain peace and tranquillity in the state.

In a statement, Chief Minister Sonowal said that the NRC, which has been updated by the State NRC Coordinator and his team under the monitoring of the Supreme Court of India and supervision of the Registrar General of India, is an outcome of the untiring efforts of the thousands of people.

He also expressed his gratitude to the people of Assam for their unconditional support which has yielded into the updating the NRC.

At the same time, he minced his words to those people whose names have been excluded from proposed NRC, as they would get the opportunity to file their appeal and be heard in the Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) as per the direction of the Union Home Ministry.

He also said the fact that the extension of filing an appeal from 60 days to 120 days to the FT will help all the excluded persons to enjoy a level playing field. He also said that the Government of Assam will take care of the cause of the excluded people and due care will be taken so that nobody is subjected to any unnecessary harassment.

Sonowal maintained that as long as the appellant’s plea remains sub-judice with the Foreigner’s Tribunal, he or she can not be treated as a foreigner. He, therefore, appealed to the people of the state belonging to Barak, Brahmaputra, hills and plains to maintain peace and set an example of a matured society.

How many people might be hit?

Over 41 lakh people of the state now stare at uncertain future ahead of the final list publication.

The complete draft of NRC, containing names of 28,983,677 out of 32,991,384 applicants, was published on July 30 last year.

Around 40.07 lakh people were left out from the complete draft of NRC and nearly 36 lakh people have filed their claims for including their names in the final NRC.

An Additional Draft Exclusion list of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published on June 26 last consisting of 1,02,462 persons.

What is the NRC?

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is the list of Indian citizens.

The 1951 NRC is now being updated in Assam to identify the illegal foreigners residing in Assam.

The NRC updating process is going on in Assam under the Assam Accord signed in 1985.

Who are eligible?

People whose names appear on the 1951 NRC.

People whose names appear on any voter list in Assam up to March 24 midnight, 1971 and descendants.

People who came from Bangladesh between January 1, 1966, and March 24, 1971, registered themselves with the Foreigner Regional Registration Office and were declared by the Foreigner Tribunal as Indian citizens.

The Indian citizens including their descendants who moved to Assam after March 24, 1971 (they need to furnish proof of residence in another part of the country as on March 24, 1971).

When did NRC updating process start in Assam?

On May 5, 2005, a tripartite meeting was held in New Delhi among the Centre, Assam government and All Assam Students' Union and the meeting was chaired by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the meeting had decided to update the NRC in Assam.

The Supreme Court got involved in the NRC process in 2009 after the apex court accepted a writ petition filed by an organisation Assam Public Works for deletion of illegal migrants’ names from the voter lists in Assam.

In June 2010, the Assam government had started two NRC pilot projects in two blocks in Kamrup and Barpeta district but were stopped the following violence.

In July 2011, the Assam government had set up a cabinet sub-committee to simplify the NRC updation procedures.

In May 2013, the Supreme court directed the Centre to finalise the NRC modalities by July 16, 2013.

In 2014, the apex court directed the government to resume the NRC updating process and the court will monitor the entire process.

In 2015, the NRC application forms distribution and receipt process started.

Acceptance of applications ended on August 31, 2015 and the verification process started on September 1, 2015.

The NRC authority has set up around 2500 NRC Seva Kendras (NSKs) across the state.

Around 3.29 crore applicants had submitted around 6.6 crore documents for inclusion their names in the list.

The part publication of draft NRC was published December 31, 2017 midnight by including around 1.90 crore people out of 3.29 crore applicants.

Total workforce engaged and amount spent -

Around 55,000 state government employees have been engaged in the entire NRC process.

Around Rs. 1300 crore has been utilised in the process.