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TOPIC: General Studies 2
- Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
In News: The Union Cabinet recently approved a proposal to conduct Census 2021 and update the National Population Register (NPR) in all the States/UTs except Assam. The Government will spend Rs 8,754 crore for the Census 2021 and Rs 3,941 crore for updating the NPR.
National Population Register (NPR):
The objective of the NPR:
Citizenship Act:
NPR connected to NRC?
Concerns: NRC or NPR exercise, in combination with the recently enacted Citizenship (Amendment) Act, or CAA, could lead to disenfranchisement and harassment of the poor and undocumented segments of the population was not born out of anyone’s imagination
Where does Aadhaar fit in?
There is a little back story about NPR and Aadhaar. The two were considered rival projects under the UPA government of Manmohan Singh. When NPR process began in the government, P Chidambaram was the Union home minister, who pushed the population register project aggressively.
Aadhaar was taking shape with equally aggressive push from then Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee (who later became the President of India -- a development that saw Chidamabaram moving to the finance ministry and also an end to NPR-Aadhaar rivalry).
Both the NPR and Aadhaar projects were concurrently underway collecting demographic and biometric data. Initially, both had better and targeted delivery of benefits and services to people as their objectives. The works of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the home ministry were viewed as duplication and wastage of resources.
The conflict, however, ended in a compromise between the home ministry and the UIDAI where it was decided that NPR and Aadhaar databases will be used for different purposes. Aadhaar will deliver welfare services and NPR will be used for other purposes of governance.
It was also decided that those already enrolled for Aadhaar need not give their biometric details during NPR exercise. The NPR data were to be matched with Aadhaar data for de-duplication. But the final formula gave NPR an upper hand. It was agreed that in case of discrepancy between Aadhaar and NPR data, NPR would prevail.
Simply put, NPR conducted in accordance with the Citizenship Amendment Act 2003 will form the key data set for both Aadhaar and NRIC.
Criticisms
Advantages
Way forward:
Conclusion:
Connecting the dots: