GUWAHATI, Oct 15 - The Centre has directed all the state governments to cooperate with the process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam so that the verification of documents submitted by the applicants born in other states can be verified properly. On its part, officials of the Assam Government have also started visiting other states to hold meetings with the government officials seeking cooperation in this regard.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, the State coordinator for updating the NRC, Prateek Hajela said that the process of verification of documents submitted by the applicants is going on and the progress has been reported to the Supreme Court. He said all-out efforts are being made to ensure that the quality of the verification process is not compromised with.
Hajela revealed that more than six crore documents have to be verified, of which, around five lakh are from outside the State. He said that initially, the cooperation from other states was not very encouraging and the officers of those states were not accustomed to the job of �back-end verification� of such documents. He said that after the Centre was informed about the problems, a directive has been issued to all the states to extend cooperation to the process.
The State NRC coordinator said they have also started sending out officials to other states. A team of officials was sent to Agartala to hold talks with Tripura officials, while another team went to Arunachal Pradesh. He said the officials received positive response from the governments there and �we are also expecting positive response from Nagaland.� He said officials would be sent to various other states in a phased manner soon to expedite the process.
Relying to a question, Hajela said till date, no deadline has been fixed for completion of the process of document verification, which is the most vital part of updating the NRC. He said as the apex court is closely monitoring the progress, it is likely to give a deadline in this regard.
Hajela revealed that so far, FIRs have been filed against more than 140 persons for submitting false or forged information while applying for inclusion of their names in the NRC. The deputy commissioners have also been directed to file FIRs against all those submitting fake or forged documents, he added.
Hajela also expressed the hope that with both the Central and state governments taking keen interest in updating the NRC, funds should not be a problem in completing the job on time.
