The exercise to publish the final draft of the National Register of Citizens, fast approaching the June 30 deadline set by the Supreme Court, might have hit a logistic hurdle caused by floods and landslides.
The flood has washed away “a bit of optimism”. But the NRC secretariat in Guwahati is hopeful it can overcome the “loss of about five days” in seven flood-affected districts, primarily three in southern Assam’s Barak Valley.
At least 21 people have died in the floods and landslides after torrential rains for a few days from June 13.
“The updating exercise was progressing smoothly when the flood in the plains and landslides in the hills happened. A sizeable number of people were not able to come to the NRC seva kendras with documents for verification. Not a single person can be left out of the process before the final draft,” Prateek Hajela, NRC coordinator, said on Friday.
He said his team across some 2,500 seva kendras, each covering an average 10 villages, was confident of meeting the deadline a fortnight ago.
“Let’s say we do not have the same level of optimism as a few days ago. We are still evaluating the loss of time and are trying our best to recover. Hopefully, everything will fall in place,” Mr. Hajela said.
The first draft of NRC, published at the stroke of midnight on December 31 last year, had the names of 19 million of the 32.9 million applicants.
The exercise was undertaken to settle the issue of illegal migrants, specifically Bangladeshis, once and for all with March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date for deregistering foreigners.
The Sarbananda Sonowal government, meanwhile, has sought 150 companies of central paramilitary forces in view of perceived law and order problems after the final NRC draft is published. The problem is envisaged in areas dominated by linguistic and religious minorities.
The Centre had prior to the publication of the first draft sent 85 companies of paramilitary forces to Assam.
