New Assam NRC Coordinator appointed
The Hindu
Incumbent Hitesh Dev Sarma retires on July 31
Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) will have a new State Coordinator from August 1.
IAS officer Partha Pratim Mazumdar will replace incumbent Hitesh Dev Sarma, who retires on July 31, as the third State Coordinator for NRC. The first was bureaucrat Prateek Hajela.
A notification issued by Jadav Saikia, Secretary to the Personnel Department said Mr Mazumdar, will be transferred as a Secretary to the Home and Political Department as well as the State Coordinator for the NRC and the in-charge of the NRC Directorate. He is currently posted as the Registrar of Cooperative Societies and Secretary to the Women and Child Welfare Department.
The Supreme Court-monitored NRC exercise, aimed at weeding out “illegal immigrants” from Assam, has been in a limbo since the complete draft list of citizens was published on August 31, 2019. Some 19.06 lakh people out of 3.3 crore applicants were excluded from the list based on doubts about their citizenship.
The apex court transferred Mr Hajela to his home State Madhya Pradesh less than three months after the complete draft NRC was published, apparently because the BJP-led Assam government found the list of citizens faulty and sought re-verification of 10-20% of the names in all the districts.
Mr. Sarma took over from Mr. Hajela a month after he left Assam in November 2019.