Worries about NRC Work

What is worrisome to the common man about the ongoing work on the updating of the tiol Register of Citizens (NRC) is the kind of glib and gratuitous advertisements that are being aired across the television channels of the State. No one needs to be reminded that the work on the updating of the NRC has been deliberately and inorditely delayed by a State government that has nothing to gain from the exercise. So, despite several tripartite meetings involving the UPA government at the Centre, the State government and the AASU, and several commitments, even the work of identifying the modalities never got started. In 2010, before the last Assembly elections, two pilot projects on the updating of the NRC were undertaken by the State government. These pilot projects had to be summarily abandoned due to violent reactions in Barpeta Road in which a few lives were lost. Many people sincerely believed that the violent reactions were orchestrated by the State government. Be that as it may, the entire business of updating the NRC has been monitored by the Supreme Court for some time, and the apex court is not accepting silly excuses for any further delay. And now that even a time frame has been set, there is not much scope for trying to sabotage the exercise any more. But why should the government spend so much money on advertising the exercise? And why should Pankaj Chakraborty, Circle Officer of Palasbari conducting the exercise talk about removing fears from the minds of the people? After all, why should anyone be afraid of an updated NRC?