NRC data vanishes from website; Officials say cloud storage subscription was not paid
GUWAHATI: The NRC final list published in August last year on ''www.nrcassam.nic.in'' has gone offline. The Union Home Ministry assured that the data was safe and cited "some technical issue in visibility on cloud.” The Ministry also said that the issue will be resolved soon.
According to officials, the data vanished as the service period of the cloud storage provided by IT firm Wipro had expired. The renewal of the subscription could not be done as there was no coordinator available post the transfer of former coordinator Prateek Hajela.
Officials also said that discontinuation of Wipro which was earlier authorized to look after all IT-related works in the NRC update exercise has caused this issue.
"The cloud service for the huge set of data was provided by Wipro and their contract was till October 19 last year. However, this was not renewed by the earlier co-coordinator (Prateek Hajela). So, the data got offline from December 15 after it was suspended by Wipro. I assumed charge on December 24," NRC state co-ordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma told news agency PTI.
"Once Wipro makes the data live, it will be available for the public. We hope that people will be able to access it in the next two to three days," he added.
Congress leader Debabrata Saikia in a letter to Registrar General of India questioned the “suspicious” development.
"It is a mystery as to why the online data should vanish all of a sudden, especially as the appeals process has not even started due to the go-slow attitude adopted by the NRC Authority,” he wrote.
Around 1.9 million people being left out in Assam where the NRC exercise was concluded on August 31 this year. According to a survey conducted by the Rights & Risks Analysis Group (RRAG), those who have been left out from the NRC list in Assam spent a total of Rs 7,836 crore in appeals and hearings. The NRC exercise carried out under the supervision of the Supreme Court aims to identify foreigners who entered the state after 24th of March 1971. This is in keeping with Assam Accord that was agreed upon by the Centre and state bodies.