The Union government wants to showcase and publicise the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise through music videos and films. The office of the NRC Coordinator has invited bids to film the process for which it will “share data” with private creative agencies.
The documentary will include “the verification processes undertaken across the State, interviews of [the] public and interviews of officials involved in NRC work,” the Request for Proposal (RFP) says.
Stating the purpose for floating the RFP, the office of NRC State Coordinator Prateek Hajela said, “NRC update is an extremely huge exercise without any precedence and it is imperative that adequate documentation of the process is carried out. Such documentation also needs to be done in formats which are to be understood and have the ability to record the elaborate and IT-intensive nature of the exercise.”
The RFP added that the State Coordinator, NRC “accordingly intends to get a proper audio-visual documentation of the NRC Update Project.”
The RFP said the language of the documentaries will be English with versions in Hindi and Assamese. “Sub-titles for interviews and other written material will also have to be in English while Hindi and Assamese language will be used for the respective language version,” it said.
Around 1,200 employees of software major Wipro have provided the IT backup to the project.
The NRC exercise in Assam — under the supervision of the Supreme Court — is one of the most keenly watched processes in the country as several lakh people will be rendered Stateless once the final list is published.
The SC has asked the list to be published by July 31 but the Centre and the State have moved the Court seeking “sample re-verification” in areas bordering Bangladesh.
Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai while replying to a question on the NRC in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday said there would be “some delay in finalising the NRC” as the government does not want genuine citizens to be left out or any illegal immigrant to be included. The SC is yet to respond to Centre’s petition for sample re-verification.
Hearings under way
Around 41 lakh people have been excluded from the draft NRC lists published in July 2018 and June this year. Around 36 lakh have filed claims against their exclusion and objections have been filed against two lakh inclusions. The hearings for these claims and objections are underway at various NRC centres.NRC first published in Assam in 1951 is being updated as per directions of the SC to segregate Indian citizens living in Assam from those who have illegally entered the State from Bangladesh after March 25, 1971.
