With the process for enrolment in the National Population Registry (NPR) proving to be a nightmare, a consumer organisation has urged the authorities to make the census data public to enable the people to verify the details.
Balamurali of Nanjundapuram Road said that the enrolment centres never had adequate number of NPR forms and there was no staggered distribution of forms to areas coming under the camp.
In the absence of distribution of forms with date and time specified for the residents, the camps witnessed milling crowd and long queues.
A number of residents in Kavundampalayam and Saravanampatty pointed out that the staff manning these camps were not adequately sensitised to the process.
Sensitise staff
In the event of an applicant turning up for inclusion in NPR who was already holding an Aadhaar card, he/she need not give the bio-metric details such as iris, photograph and thumb impressions.
The staff would have to scan the Aadhaar card and share the details to fill the NPR form.
The staff insisted on producing the slip issued by the enumerators during the census drive held in 2011.
Many residents had failed to preserve it and some residents were not sure as to whether their names were included. There were cases where the residents had shifted from one area to another between 2011 and 2013. Checking the census register at the NPR camp was proving to be a time consuming process, said K. Kathirmathiyon, secretary of Coimbatore Consumer Cause.
Mr.Kathirmathiyon wanted the officials to ensure availability of NPR forms and sensitisation of NPR camp staff to the process of enrolling those with Aadhaar card.
Prior to the camps, the forms can be distributed, clearly marking two days for a particular street or locality to avoid overcrowding at the centres.
Mr. Kathirmathiyon also suggested that census data should be made public at the Government offices so that people could check for inclusion of their names and to note down the page number, part number and serial number. This would ease confusions at the NPR camp.
Similarly, a provision should also be made to entertain applications online for inclusion or deletion of names from the census records besides accommodating queries for change in spelling in names, and address change.
