The Union Home Ministry on Wednesday clarified that no person needs to submit any documents during the house-to-house survey for updating the National Population Register and that information provided by individuals would be accepted and recorded.
Through a series of tweets, the Ministry sought to deny the thrust of a report in The Hindu headlined NPR trial form gets government nod for rollout that appeared on January 1.
The Ministry spokesperson’s official Twitter handle said: “The line taken by the story is incorrect, without taking into account the factual position for conducting NPR.”
MHA tweet on The Hindu NPR story
It went on to say: “The story incorrectly quotes government officials that ‘respondents to NPR exercise will get time to provide papers’ and ‘families would need to dig out old documents and ensure that such documents are readily available for verification & enumerators would see those documents’.” It added: “The story ignores Government’s stated position that no individual will be required to submit any document to any authority or enumerator visiting his/her household for NPR survey. Information provided by the individual would be accepted and recorded accordingly.”
Our Special Correspondent responds:
The report that is sought to be denied is based on points given in the NPR manual.
The manual clearly mentions that the existing database would be updated by verifying the details of all respondents through house-to-house enumeration.
The Hindu had reported this earlier on December 26. (NPR: House to house enumeration planned)
Fact check: Is the government right in denying NPR-NRC link?
The relevant points in the NPR Training Manual that indicate that the details collected by the enumerators will be verified are:
- 1.6 The Government has decided to update the NPR database along with Houselisting and Housing Census phase of Census of India 2021 during April– September 2020.
- 1.7 Updating the existing NPR database by verifying the details of all residents by conducting a house to house enumeration by the enumerator (designated Government official) and modifying/correcting the demographic data items.
- 1.8 Collecting Aadhaar number from each resident voluntarily.
- 1.9 Collecting mobile number, Election Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) or Voter ID Card number, Indian Passport number and Driving License number, if available with the residents.
- 1.10 Inclusion of all new resident(s)/new household(s) found in the local area (HLB) during the field work.
The Ministry spokesperson has not denied the point that the National Population Register form will include an additional column seeking details of the “place of birth of father and mother”.
