NEW DELHI, July 24 - The Centre today said that power to grant citizenship to minority migrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh has been delegated to district magistrates of 16 districts and governments of seven states to make the process simpler and faster.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has been in touch with the state authorities concerned and other stakeholders, and has sensitized them to expeditiously process all the pending citizenship applications of eligible applicants, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said in a Lok Sabha reply to a question by Kalyan Banerjee of West Bengal.
According to online data, a total of 4,044 applications are under process at various levels for grant of Indian citizenship. Out of which, 1,085 applications are under process in the Ministry of Home Affairs and 2,959 are with various state governments. However, religion-wise data is not maintained centrally.
As per the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and rules made thereunder, Indian citizenship is granted to foreign nationals, who make an application in the prescribed form, Rijiju said.
