The minister stated that their letter to the Centre has not received a response yet and so the NPR work is yet to begin.
The National Population Register (NPR) exercise which is expected start from April 1, 2020, has not been notified in Tamil Nadu, announced state Revenue Minister RB Udhayakumar. BJP ally AIADMK had written to the central government raising concerns about three new questions in NPR.
“We had written a letter to the Centre to clarify on the addition of 3 new questions. We have not received a response on this yet and so the work has not been started on this yet. In many states the notifications for NPR and Census has been published. In our state we have published the notification only for census as of now,” he explained to reporters on Thursday.
Between August 12 and September 31, 2019 the pre-test for Census 2021 was conducted simultaneously in different places across the country. In Tamil Nadu this exercise was conducted in three districts – Nilgiris, Sivaganga and Kancheepuram.
Earlier in February, the AIADMK government had written to the Centre, asking for certain details to be avoided in the NPR. This included details like mother tongue, place and date of birth of mother/ father/ spouse, Aadhaar/ mobile number/ voter ID/ driving license number.
Later that month, which speaking at an event in Madurai, Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had said that the answering such questions was “optional”, referring to Prakash Javadekar’s , Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, contradictory statement that “many questions are optional” in the NPR.
Reiterating that the NPR became a part of the census in 2010 when the DMK was an ally of the Congress-led government at the Centre, Udhayakumar also said that the state did not have the authority to go against a decision taken by the Centre in the Parliament.
Referring to Opposition Leader MK Stalin’s statement after Wednesday’s walkout from the Assembly, Udhayakumar said, “He had given wrong information yesterday, saying people will have to produce documents to prove their identity. We would like to clarify once again that an individual need not produce any kind of document to prove their identity or while answering any question. The officer will be able to take down the information they provide without the need for documents.”
The AIADMK government on Wednesday reiterated its stand on the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and said that it will not be able to pass a resolution in the Legislative Assembly against the Central legislation passed in the Parliament. Following this, the opposition party, DMK, accompanied by allies Congress and the Indian Union Muslim League, staged a walkout from the Assembly.
“We had written a letter to the Centre to clarify on the addition of 3 new questions. We have not received a response on this yet and so the work has not been started on this yet. In many states the notifications for NPR and Census has been published. In our state we have published the notification only for census as of now,” he explained to reporters on Thursday.
Source: The News Minute