Assam: More Than 157 Contractual NRC Employees Have Been Laid Off

GUWAHATI: At least 157 employees who were employed by the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam on a contract basis have been laid off.

The change occurred as a result of NRC Coordinator Partha Pratim Mazumder's choice to hire new people in place of the departing ones. The fired staff is required to turn in all valuables and paperwork by June 29, 2023, at the latest. The Gauhati High Court has received a petition from every Circle Project Supervisor who was fired on the matter. After Hitesh Dev Sarma departed on July 30, 2022, Partha Pratim Mazumder was chosen to serve as the NRC's State Coordinator.

However, in May, IAS officer Prateek Hajela was facing a case filed in the Kamrup (metro) chief judicial magistrate's court (CR/155/2023, 12 April 2023) for alleged involvement with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) updation scam in Assam.

Luit Kumar Barman, a well-known Assamese businessman, filmmaker, and active social media user, has filed a lawsuit against the former State coordinator of the NRC, Wipro Limited, and Integrated System and Services (ISS, represented by owner Utpal Hazarika), alleging that they participated in the laundering of Rs 155 crores of money from May 2014 to October 2019 while the NRC Assam update process was underway.

In 2022, The National Register of Citizens (NRC) update process in Assam has been plagued by significant irregularities, according to a report presented to the Assam Assembly during its ongoing session by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).

According to a report the CAG submitted for the fiscal year that concluded in 2020, poor planning caused up to 215 software utilities to be haphazardly added to the main programme.

It said that while the audit trail may have guaranteed accountability for the accuracy of NRC data, the goal of a legitimate, error-free NRC could not be achieved.

Additionally, the CAG stated that the time required from the initial conceptualization caused the project cost for the NRC to increase from an initial Rs 288.18 crores to Rs 1602.66 crores.

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