GUWAHATI, Oct 20 - The State Government will plead before the Supreme Court of India to direct different State governments to cooperate with the update process of the National Register of Citizen (NRC) by facilitating verification of the documents sent to them.
State coordinator of the NRC update process, Prateek Hajela, told mediapersons today that he will take up the matter with the apex court in the next hearing slated for October 26.
�Of the five lakh documents sent to 26 different states for verification, only 7,000 of them have been reverted � which is very less,� Hajela stated.
Apart from these, 402 NRC related documents have also been sent to nearly 40 countries, including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Japan, UAE, Vietnam, Trinidad and Tobago, Australia, Sweden, Kuwait and South Africa, among others. Of these countries, only Kuwait and South Africa have responded to the verification pleas.
He also stated that there has been no paucity of funds and the Centre has already agreed to release the next instalment shortly. Of the estimated Rs 908 crore, the State has already received nearly Rs 335 crore.
�The Centre has assured to release the remaining Rs 573 crore very shortly,� he informed, adding that the maximum amount of money is being spent on expenses related to data entry.
Rubbishing media reports on leakage of NRC documents, Hajela reaffirmed that �all the NRC documents are completely safe and the update process is going on at a fast speed.�
He divulged that of the six crore documents issued by various issuing authorities in the State received from applicants, already 4.9 crore of them have been verified.
The NRC office has received 68.2 lakh applications from across the State encompassing nearly 3.27 crore population.
�After collecting the family tree documents, we have so far completed 58 per cent of data entry work. We have now started the family tree verification. We are also conducting training of Deputy Commissioners on NRC update, besides other government functionaries, from time to time,� he pointed out. The data digitisation process is also going on at a fast pace, he said.
Nearly 50,000 government employees and 8,500 contractual staff are engaged in the NRC update process, he added.
