GUWAHATI, Dec 3 - Despite issuance of directives by the Supreme Court, the office of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) has till date received less than 15 per cent of the total documents sent to various foreign countries for verification.
The apex court monitoring the publication of draft NRC has time and again issued directives to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to expedite the process by taking up the matter with the Indian Mission and ask them to cooperate with the NRC department in the verification process.
State co-coordinator of the NRC Prateek Hajela told this reporter that of the 402 documents sent to as many as 37 countries for verification, the office of the NRC has received response against only 53 documents.
The NRC office had recently also informed the Court about the poor response from the other States as well after which necessary directives were issued to all the Chief Secretaries of all the States.
The documents sent to foreign countries include those submitted by the applicants for the enrollment of their names in the NRC. The documents are mostly birth and marriage certificates issued by the authorities of the respective country to the people of Indian (Assam) origin.
Sources informed that the verification of documents issued by the foreign countries assume significance especially in terms of establishing family tree and the lukewarm response from the foreign countries is not helping the cause.
The NRC office had recently informed the court that it is yet to complete the verification of 47 lakh people belonging to the category of family tree.
