Assam to seek Aadhaar cards for persons left out of NRC

Biometrics of 27 lakh people were collected during claims and objections phase of exercise

The Assam government has decided to approach the Supreme Court for directing the Centre to provide Aadhaar cards to people left out of the updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) published in 2019.

About 19.06 lakh people were left out of the complete draft NRC. They were among 27 lakh people whose biometrics had been collected during the claims and objections phase of the NRC exercise.

“The lack of Aadhaar cards has deprived these 27 lakh people, some of whom belong to the indigenous communities, of government schemes such as free rice or housing. These people should get the document,” Water Resources Minister and government spokesperson Pijush Hazarika said.

The decision to approach the apex court, which had monitored the NRC exercise, was taken after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led State government met representatives of 27 organisations on Thursday.

Agriculture Minister Atul Bora, who had taken part in the meeting, said there was no harm in providing Aadhaar card to the left-out people as it is not a citizenship document. “The Aadhaar cards can be made invalid if their names get dropped from the final NRC after a notification from the Registrar General of India,” he said.

The Assam government had earlier sought an amendment to the standard operating procedure of the NRC to enable the left-out people to get Aadhaar cards.

The NRC has been in a limbo since the complete draft was published on August 31, 2019, leaving out 19.06 lakh of the 3.3 crore applicants from the updated list of citizens. Each “rejected” person is yet to be issued a rejection slip to approach the quasi-judicial Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) within 120 days of receiving the slip for deciding his or her fate.