GUWAHATI, Dec 17 - The officers involved with house to house visits to cross check documents and other information provided by the applicants for updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) have not faced any resistance or trouble in any part of the State so far and the office of the State NRC Coordinator is getting ready to implement the Supreme Court order of publishing the first draft of the updated NRC on December 31.
Talking to The Assam Tribune, state NRC Coordinator Prateek Hajela said, �we are working hard to implement the Supreme Court order of publishing the first draft of the updated NRC by December 31 and within a day or two, we will start a massive publicity campaign to dispel doubts from the minds of the people on the first draft.�
Hajela said that making people aware of the first draft is very important as names of some genuine Indian citizens would not figure in the first draft and those would be included in the second draft. He said that it is also possible that some names of a family would be included in the first draft and some would not because the documents of each individual are being verified and the process of verification often takes time. He said that under the circumstances, there is need to make the people aware as the possibility of apprehensions in the minds of the people, whose names are not included in the first draft cannot be ruled out.
It may be mentioned here that the Supreme Court has ordered that the first draft of the NRC should be published by December 31 and the date for the publication of the second draft is yet to be announced.
Hajela said that the documents and other information are being verified at different levels. �We have adopted a multi-layer verification process and that is taking time,� he added. He revealed that house to house visits by teams of officials are requited in certain cases where additional clarifications are required to ascertain whether the applicants are genuine Indian citizens or whether the documents provided are correct. This is the last stage of verification and the process started on December 1. Around 25,000 officers and others are engaged in the process and they are working round the clock to expedite the work. However, such verification is a painstaking process and it takes time and the final decision in some cases will have to be given by the Deputy Commissioners of the concerned districts. The process has to be carried out manually and it takes time, Hajela said. However, about 50 percent of the work of house to house verification has already been completed and the decisions of the Deputy Commissioners on the findings of the verification teams are awaited.
Though there were apprehensions that the house to house verification teams might face resistance in some parts of the State, so far, the work is going on smoothly and the teams engaged are working without any problem. Security cover has also been provided to the verification teams in the areas considered vulnerable. �We are taking all possible measures to ensure that the verification is carried out in most impartial manner,� asserted the State NRC Coordinator.
