Doubts on NPR may derail Census 2021: Parliament panel warns MHA

Amid "dissatisfaction and fear" among people and several Opposition-ruled states rising in protest against the National Population Register (NPR), a Parliamentary Standing Committee has cautioned the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) that there is "quite a chance" that the entire Census exercise may get "stymied" in such places if doubts remain.

The Standing Committee on Home Affairs headed by Congress MP Anand Sharma said the MHA should consider "some way out" so that the Census operations "goes smoothly", amid fears among a section that the NPR exercise, which is clubbed with the Census, would lead to National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The multi-party panel also said that all the states should be "fully convinced" on various issues pertaining to the NPR to have a national consensus so that there is absolute clarity and no apprehension among remaining people across the country, which will help in conducting these exercises in a smooth manner".

In its meeting on February 18, the report said, the committee observed that "there is a lot of dissatisfaction and fear among the people regarding the upcoming NPR and Census. The The Committee also feels these apprehensions should have been duly ventilated in the media."

"The MHA must consider some way out so that the Census goes smoothly. Otherwise, there is quite a chance of the entire process being stymied in many states," the report said.

The NPR exercise will be conducted along with the Census house-listing survey starting this April 1 but states like Opposition-ruled Kerala and West Bengal governments have made it clear that it would conduct the NPR data collection. Opposition alleges that the NPR is a precursor for NRC while the BJP-led Centre has said that no decision has been taken on citizen's registry. The Census will take place next year.

Questions have also been raised about the new additions in the questionnaire like the date of birth and their place of birth of parents, which have been objected by several parties. On this, the MHA told the panel that the date and place of birth of parents who were not living with those enumerated were not collected during the 2010 exercise.

"To facilitate back end data processing and making the data items of date and place of birth complete for all household, the details of parents are being collected in a more comprehensive manner in the NPR 2020," the MHA defended its decision that has run into controversy.

The panel asked the MHA whether it can update the NPR by using Aadhaar database and not undertaking a fresh exercise. The MHA said the NPR is being updated and not created afresh, neither the existing Aadhaar database could serve the purpose nor there arise any question of duplication.

"It will not be possible without visiting each and every household to construct family based data from Aadhaar database" as the latter is individual based date, it said adding Aadhaar number is collected voluntarily in the 2020 exercise.

However, the panel was not convinced with the MHA response that Aadhaar was an individual data and said it wanted the government to explore the feasibility of using Aadhaar meta-data for the Census and updation of NPR.