NEW DELHI, Nov 12 - As the process of reverification of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) data gathers momentum, the Assam government has called for reverification such data in districts bordering Bangladesh and also in those districts with abnormal population growth rate.
According to a legal counsel of the Assam government, the State government has pleaded for a direction from the Supreme Court seeking reverification of 10 per cent NRC data in districts bordering Bangladesh and 20 per cent such data in districts that have recorded abnormal population growth.
The Assam government�s petition filed recently with the apex court was in response to a direction of the Supreme Court passed on August 20.
This newspaper had also quoted Chief Minister�s legal adviser as having said that they are filing an additional petition in the Supreme Court seeking reverification of data in sensitive districts of the State.
Meanwhile, the Assam government is not alone because the main petitioner Assam Public Works (APW) has called for reverification of NRC data in 22 sensitive districts of the State.
In its affidavit filed with the top court, the APW has said that it is highly necessary to conduct 100 per cent reverification in the districts of Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Chirang, South Salmara, Goalpara, Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Nalbari, Kamrup, Kamrup (Metro), Darrang, Udalguri, Sonitpur, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Morigaon, Nagaon, Hojai, Golaghat, Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi.
The Supreme Court had on October 23 asked all stakeholders to give their views.
Meanwhile, the APW has also called for inquiry into the functioning of the software used for NRC by third party software experts. According to the NRC State Coordinator�s affidavit, the software used for data entry could not detect misuse of Legacy Data Code of the same person for three different years � 1951, 1966 and 1971 as the codes are different, the APW said.
This has been clearly explained by the NRC State Coordinator in his report submitted on October 4. Though he predicted misuse of the same for future purpose, it is very alarming that already a huge number of people may have succeeded in getting their names included in the complete draft NRC illegally by taking advantage of the shortcomings in the software used in the NRC update process.
The APW has further argued that when 90 per cent work of the NRC has completed on the basis of 15 documents, any change as suggested by the State Coordinator regarding acceptability of the documents may cause great injustice to a large section of people and thereby they will be deprived of getting their names included in the NRC.
The APW has further claimed that a total of 40,70,707 people have been left out of the complete draft NRC. It has come to light that a number of indigenous and ethnic population and people from other states of India, even communities, which would fall under Original Inhabitant (OI) category, have not been included in the NRC. This has generated much confusion and fear among the affected people.
