After agreeing to NPR updation, state now has second thoughts

Cabinet expected to hold discussion on CAA, NRC and National Population Register at its meeting today to firm up its position

With the updation of the National Population Register (NPR) slated from May 15, the Punjab government appears to be non-committal on the exercise.

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The state authorities had agreed to carry out the NPR updation, house listing and housing census in the first phase of the decennial census in the state from May 15 to June 29 this year, but are now evasive on whether the NPR will be held in the state as scheduled or not.

Chief secretary Karan Avtar Singh, who chaired a meeting of senior officers of the directorate of census operations and several state government departments here last month to review preparations for the Census 2021, said he had no idea about the schedule of NPR exercise. “The state government has to decide this,” he said.

Director, local government, Bhupinder Singh also said there was no decision on the NPR schedule so far. “Check with me after two-three days,” he said.

Another senior official associated with the NPR-related work said the decision to participate in updation and its schedule was a political one. The local government department, the nodal agency for conducting the exercise in the state, has not finalised “minutes” of the meeting of the state-level coordination committee held on December 10 so far.

The state officials’ flip-flop is being linked to the ruling Congress’ strong opposition to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) with Capt Amarinder Singh being among the first CMs to speak out, calling them “divisive”.

Chairing a meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Saturday, party president Sonia Gandhi said NPR-2020 was not a benign exercise but a disguised NRC. The CWC has also demanded that the NPR process should be stopped forthwith.

The Punjab cabinet is expected to hold a discussion on the citizenship law, NRC and NPR at its meeting on Tuesday to firm up its position. It is also likely to approve the draft of a resolution on these to be brought in the two-day special session of the state assembly commencing on January 16.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the principal opposition party, has been asking the state government to convene the session to reject the citizenship law, NRC and NPR.

The state-level coordination committee meeting was attended by the chief secretary, director, census operations, Punjab and Chandigarh, Abhishek Jain, joint director, census, Mritunjay Kumar, financial commissioner, rural development and panchayats, Seema Jain, then principal secretary, local government, A Venu Prasad, school education secretary Krishan Kumar, special secretary, planning DS Mangat and additional secretary, revenue, Capt Karnail Singh.

An official statement issued after the meeting had stated that in the first phase, house listing and housing census along with the NPR would be held from May 15, 2020, whereas population enumeration would conducted be from February 9 to 28, 2021. Director, census operations, Abhishek Jain said the schedule of the first phase activities and preparations were discussed at the meeting “The proceedings of the meeting are still awaited from the state government,” he said.

The directorate of census operations has already conducted a one-week training programme for 44 master trainers who will further train 70,000 enumerators and supervisors for the field work.

The NPR, which was first collected in 2010 along with the house listing phase, then updated in 2015 through a door-to-door survey, is a comprehensive identity database of all “usual residents” of the country with their biometric particulars whereas Census is a decennial exercise conducted to create database of households. The governments of West Bengal and Kerala have announced that they will not participate in the NRC updation.