Rs 8,500 crore approved for updating National Population Register in India

New Delhi: On Tuesday, the Union Cabinet has given the go-ahead for updating of the National Population Register. A sum of Rs 8,500 crore has been allocated for the purpose.

The exercise will begin in April 2020.

According to the Home Minister's website, the National Population Register (NPR) is a "Register of usual residents of the country. It is being prepared at the local (Village/sub-Town), sub-District, District, State and National level under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003."

It becomes mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.

A usual resident is anyone who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more. It could also be a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more.

Except Assam, the National Population Register along with the Houselisting phase of Census 2021 from April to September 2020 will be applicable in all the States/UTs.

A similar exercise was conducted earlier when the data for National Population Register was "collected in 2010 along with the house listing phase of Census of India 2011. The updation of this data was done during 2015 by conducting door to door survey. The digitization of the updated information has been completed," the website further mentions.

The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars, according to the government.

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