Does India really need an NPR when there's Census?
TIMES OF INDIA.COM |
Jan 2, 2020, 12:18 IST
With states Like Punjab, West Bengal,
Chattisgarh, Kerala and Madhyapradesh halting the ground work needed for conducting
the National Population Register (NPR) survey – scheduled from April 1 tp September
30 – the countroversy regarding its
utility in creation of a National Register of Citizens (NRC), has heightened,
despite PM Narendra Modi denying the any such plans. Which begs the question:
Given that there will be a Census next year, does the government really need to
spend an additional Rs. 3,941 crore for Census – for conducting the NPR data
collection exercise?
NPR Vs Census :
NPR collects basic details about a
person, such as name, age, occuoation, gender, place of birth, parents’ name
and their of birth, name of spouse if any, relationship to head of the family,
nationality, educational qualifications, present and permanent address. All these details are also part of the Census
exercise, which with 29 questions, is far more detailed and includes details
such as religion, caste, disability and even fertility. The Census ia also exhaustive
as it will be conducted in two phases – the house enumeration data, which is
conducted along with the NPR and the actual head count, in February 2021.
Are foreigners included?
While the first NPR exercise, in 2010,
also collected biometric data – a photograph, 10 fingerprints and two iris
scans – this year’s NPR does away with
that requirement, as per the Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, who stated
that no documents or biometrics will be collected during the NPR exercise. This
means the NPR date collection exercise is very similar to the Census exercise.
Moreover, these biometric details have already been collected for Aadhar Card
and as such, are with the Government.
Private Eyes :
Date collected for Census is confidential and even the
government, its agencies and the courts don’t have access to it. On the other
hand, dats collected under the NPR exercise is publicly available since it’s published
locally tp anable the public to verify the information and ask for corrections,
if any. However, if only information pertinent for the NPR were to be disclosed
publicly, that may not violate the confidentiality clause of the census.
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