Begin typing your search above and press return to search.

Over 13L names in NRC without verification, claims ex-coordinator

Sample verification in areas like Dalgaon and Baghbar are found around 40 percent error.

By R Dutta Choudhury
Over 13L names in NRC without verification, claims ex-coordinator
X
Civil society has called former NRC director's comments as 'politically motivated'

Guwahati, July 27: Names of lakhs of foreign nationals were included in the National Register of Citizens, while the names of some indigenous people were left out. That is why a total reverification of the citizenship document is required, asserted former state coordinator of the NRC, Hitesh Dev Sarma.

Talking to The Assam Tribune, Sarma said that after becoming the state coordinator, he carried out sample verification in areas like Dalgaon and Baghbar are found around 40 per cent error. “One or two per cent error is acceptable. But 40 per cent error is not at all acceptable,” he pointed out.

He said that names of 13,20,000 persons were included without back-end verification of documents, which was not correct. He also said that names of around 64,000 persons in Chamaria block were included as original inhabitants in the NRC. But those are all suspected immigrants as indigenous people do not live in char areas.

Replying to a question, he said that it is difficult to assess the exact number of the names of foreigners included in the NRC. But from the result of the sample surveys, it can be assessed that names of around 60 to 70 lakh foreigners were included in the NRC.

In some areas, both verifying officers and data entry operators belonged to a particular community and there is every possibility of fiddling with the data, Sarma said. He pointed out that the software used in preparing the NRC has a major defect. Once the data was typed, there was no process of quality check by senior officers. Taking advantage of that, some elements managed to include names of foreigners in the NRC, Sarma said.

He further said that he had pointed out the glitch way back in 2016 when he was the executive director of NRC, but the then state coordinator did not pay heed to that.

Sarma said that names of indigenous people were also left out because of lack of adequate quality check. He also said that people were called for document verification to different districts, which was wrong and everyone should have been given a chance for document verification in their own districts.

Next Story