STAFF REPORTER
GUWAHATI: The Registrar General of India (RGI) held a review meeting on the NRC in New Delhi on Wednesday. At the meeting, NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela put forth two proposals before the RGI. These were in favour of continuous upgradation of the NRC and also on ensuring its database security in the line of the Aadhaar system. The meeting with the RGI made a detailed discussion on both proposals in the presence of Hajela and officials of Home and Political department of Assam Government.
During the meeting, RGI Vivek Joshi asked Hajela to first forward both the proposals to the Assam government. The government will then examine the proposals and forward the same to RGI with its views. The meeting was attended by Commissioner and Secretary (Home & Political Department) Government of Assam, Ashutosh Agnihotri besides several senior government officials.
Notably prior to the publication of the full NRC, the Supreme Court had directed the State Coordinator of NRC, Assam, to first ensure that the NRC database is secured with Aadhaar-like security. And only after that was the NRC State Coordinator allowed by the apex court to share the crucial database on citizens with the respective State and Central governments.
In its August 13, 2019 order, the Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, directed the State NRC Coordinator that “an appropriate regime be enacted on lines similar to the security regime provided for Aadhaar data. Only thereafter, the list of inclusions and exclusions shall be made available to the State Government, the Central Government and the Registrar General of India”. Altogether 3,30,27,661 people (through 68,37,660 applications) had applied for inclusion of their names in the final NRC. Of these applicants, 3,11,21,004 persons were found eligible for inclusion while 19,06,657 were found ineligible for inclusion in the final NRC which was published on August 31, 2019.