GUWAHATI, Feb 24 - Generation of family trees, back-end verification of applicants and extensive use of information technology (IT) will help in checking unscrupulous persons from getting their names included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) with fraudulent means. This was the observation made by Prateek Hajela, the State Coordinator for updating the NRC.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, Hajela said that all possible measures have been taken to prevent unscrupulous persons from getting their names included in the NRC with fraudulent means and the efforts have started to yield the desired results as a large number of forged papers have already been detected.
Giving an account of the steps initiated for checking such forgeries, Hajela said that one of the major steps taken is generation of family trees. He pointed out that as the pre-1971 records are easily available, any unscrupulous person can show someone as his father or mother. But generation of family tree can stop such a menace. He revealed that family trees are generated digitally with the documents deposited by the applicants, while field officers are also collecting the family trees manually from the applicants. The digitally-generated family trees and the manually-collected trees would be matched to remove the anomalies. He said that around 95 per cent of the applicants submitted legacy data, which is a positive development for the officials concerned, as it would be easier to detect the persons who submitted forged legacy data.
Hajela pointed out even during the preparation of the electoral rolls, the reports of the officers engaged are enough for getting names included in the rolls. But this is not the case with the NRC and for the first time, back-end verification of records is carried out. The documents are digitized and sent to the concerned officers for verification, which would reduce the chances of forgery. It may be mentioned here that a large number of forged documents have already been detected.
The NRC State Coordinator said that the reports of the field verification officers and the digital records would be cross matched to avoid mistakes and manipulations. A proper structural model has been put into place for thorough verification of the documents. The field reports are also digitized so that the same can be checked whenever there is any doubt.
All the Deputy Commissioners have been directed to personally go for random checking of the reports of the field officers and daily reports are compiled. This process would keep the field officers on their toes and they would carry out their job properly, Hajela added.
All the data, including the documents, submitted by the applicants have been digitized and a data centre has been set up and back up of all data is kept meticulously for future use. A backup would also be kept in Delhi to ensure that the same are kept properly for years to come to be used in case of any complaint, Hajela added.
