Nagaland on Wednesday launched an exercise to prepare the Register of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland (RIIN), a master list of all indigenous people.
The project’s objective, the Nagaland government said, was to check the issuance of fake indigenous inhabitant certificates.
RIIN, being monitored by the Home Commissioner, has a time-frame of 60 days for completion of the survey by designated teams. Each team, comprising local administrative officials, school teachers and nominated members has been tasked with visiting every village and urban ward within its specified area for collecting information and tallying with government records.
“The process has been started,” Home Commissioner R. Ramakrishnan said without elaborating.
Like Assam’s National Register of Citizens, scheduled to be published by July 31, RIIN has factored in a claims and objections phase before preparing the complete list latest by December 10. Those who figure in the list will be issued an Indigenous Inhabitant Certificate.
Officials said that after RIIN’s completion, no one would be issued such a certificate except for babies born to those figuring in the indigenous register.
Some civil body organisations had said RIIN was premature as there was no clear-cut definition of who is indigenous and who is non-indigenous in the State. Some suggested Nagaland’s Statehood Day – December 1, 1963 – should be the cut-off date for accepting any person as indigenous.
