Syed Hurairah
Hyderabad: With barely 20 days to go before the country-wide National Population Register (NPR) exercise begins along with Census 2021 house listing phase, there are several questions which remain unanswered about its modalities.
For instance, there is little clarity on the agency or company which has been given the mandate to develop software of the app which will be used to carryout NPR work. More importantly and alarmingly, there is no information about how a respondent can know whether the enumerator has entered his details correctly into the app. In other words, whether the equivalent of an ‘acknowledgment’ slip will be given to the respondent is still unclear.
Right to Information Activist S Q Masood has asked for information about the above mentioned aspects of the NPR. The information, which came in mid-January, from the Ministry of Home Affairs’ National Population Register Division did little to clear the confusion.
“I asked clearly if there is any provision given to the informant or respondent to ensure the information captured on the application is correct or not. I was surprised and concerned at the response. The response was ‘it is under the process of finalisation’,” Masood said.
With regard to information about the agency or company which has been given the job of developing the software, the NPR Division again did not throw light. “It is under the process of finalisation,” the RTI response says.
To lend context about privacy, app have a privacy statement. Under this, the user agrees to share information with the company or agency. There are certain terms to which the user and company agree to. In this connection, the RTI activist wanted to know if there is any privacy statement and who will be the owner of the data which will be captured in a digital format.
The answer to this query was shocking. “This information is not available with CPIO (Chief Public Information Officer,” was the response.
It would be no stretch of imagination if one were to say that there is fear within the Muslim community about the NPR process. It is not only the Muslims but groups of people from Hindu, Christian, Sikh and other communities too are worried about the state of affairs. They ask the same question as do the Muslims—What if the response is wrongly recorded? What if the enumerator is a biased person? The heightened apprehension is due to the fact that an element of mistrust has crept between the people and the Government at the Centre. All this is primarily due to the inclusion of the questions such as date and place of birth of the respondent’s parents, place of last residence, voter ID card number and mother tongue.
The city and state, have been witnessing frequent but unorganised protests with citizens being vociferous against the Trident of Black Legislations – Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, National Register of Indian Citizens and the National Population Register.