The National Population Register (NPR) will be updated in Kerala despite the opposition of the State government to the project.
Vivek Joshi, Registrar General and Census Commissioner, has informed the Chief Secretary that “State government officials will be deployed for the Census field work from April 15 to May 29 and the same officials will carry out the NPR updating too.”
Comprehensive database
“The objective of the NPR, created in 2010 and updated in 2015, is to have a comprehensive database of usual residents in the country,” he said.
After West Bengal, Kerala was the second State to declare that it would not update the register. With widespread apprehension that the updating would eventually lead to the preparation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), several sections of society had come out against the programme.
Govt. stand
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, while repeatedly asserting that the State would not update the register, had stated that the government would cooperate with the Census. The Census authorities plan to update the NPR from April to September this year along with the first phase of the Census. As the controversy raged, the State government and the Census Directorate, Kerala, had omitted all references to the NPR from the communications related to Census to avoid social friction in the State.
In his letter, the Registrar General noted that “there is no reason for any apprehension among any section of society" and “at present, there is no proposal to create countrywide NRC. No document or biometrics is being collected during the NPR updating.” Incidentally, the official has also acknowledged the State's stand towards the NPR in his communication.
“The Principal Secretary of the General Administration Department has intimated that all activists connected with the updating of NPR have been stayed in Kerala,” he said.
The letter also indicated that “a pre-test for the Census and the NPR updating was conducted from August 12 to September 30, 2019 in all the States, including Kerala.” The training for the national trainers and master trainers for Kerala had already been completed, the Census authorities said.
Mr. Joshi solicited the cooperation of the State for the “successful conduct of training for the field staff and the timely stay of the NPR updating work in the State.” CPI(M) sources said the government had already made its stand clear on the issue.
