The Registrar General of India (RGI) under the Union Home Ministry pulled down a document with the latest form of the National Population Register (NPR) from its website.
The NPR schedule (form) generated through an online system on August 18 was part of a handbook, Census of India 2021 — Handbook for Principal/District Census Officers and Charge Officers , that was shared with all the States.
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After The Hindu reported on October 26 that the form had retained contentious questions such as the “mother tongue, place of birth of father and mother, and last place of residence,” the handbook was removed from the website- censusindia.gov.in.
A Home Ministry official, however, said on Friday that “the NPR proforma was yet to be finalised.”
Though NPR was first compiled in 2010 and updated in 2015, the new questions were added during a trial exercisein September 2019. The exercise has been opposed by some States and citizen groups as NPR is the first step toward compilation of the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRC) according to Citizenship Rules, 2003. NPR already has a database of 119 crore residents.
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The NPR is to be conducted along with the first phase of Census. The House listing and Housing Census and NPR update were to be conducted simultaneously from April-September 2020 but the exercise was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. New dates are yet to be announced.
