India Policy Foundation (IPF) team meets Census Commissioner of India
Three members team of IPF met Dr C Chandramouli, the Census Commissioner of India in his office. We presented him the intervention paper “census 2011: Blinkered Vision Fragmented ideas” which deals primarily with the caste enumeration and National Population Register(NPR). He complimented the effort “the best thing is that there is an initiative from the civil society on these issues .” As far the question of caste is concerned he refused to make any formal comment since the matter is with Group of Ministers. Our discussion went on for an hour. He primarily focussed on NPR. He agreed to the issue raised in the Intervention Paper , i.e., infiltrators getting legitimate and honourable place along with citizens in the NPR. But he argued that preparation of register will mean procuring signature, biometric of thumb, self declaration as Indian nationals , photograph of the all the usual residents in India. All these will help police and other investigating agencies , to further identify undesirable elements using Indian soil. They can not escape. The Unique Identity card(UID) will also check those who have multiple voting identity card, passports and ration cards or other legal documents and misuse them.. The unique number and biometric will bring such discrepancies in the light. A person in future can not take advantages by different names(like Chandramouli, C Praasad, and so on). As far confidentiality is concerned everything is in telephone directory and voter list and such other documents(name, age, address etc), he said. . after all infiltrators are in our voter list and they procured all the legal documents necessary to prove them as Indians through using unfair means, such industries are operating across the country , he remarked. The police verification will mean harassment of citizens, elderly people, rural population lack documents like birth certificates ….. It is not uncommon thing that you have all the information about all the residents of the country. He also cautioned that NPR should not be confused with Citizens Register.
He further said that the NPR will block entry of names of illegal residents in future. If we can not identify 8 crores today whatever reasons may be then it does not mean we should keep our door open and invite infiltrators and it should go on 25 crores! He questioned” had ever civil society raised voice against the infiltrators? Do we not know that a large number of such people are in Delhi, and enjoying all the facilities?... he argued that once the NPR is prepared, we will be able to correct the list by verifications and also on he basis of objections coming from the civil society. We can then identify foreign nationals. He showed his concern for the infiltrators and expressed anguish that no initiative is taken by civil society to identify them. He noted our suggestions and accepted invitation to visit the IPF to interact with scholars and activists.
