The Hindu:
Hyderabad: Thursday, 27 February 2020.
I
will be filing a first appeal shortly, says activist S.Q. Masood
With
just over a month for the National Population Register (NPR) exercise to begin,
the NPR Division of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), in response to a Right to
Information query, has indicated that certain aspects of the exercise are still
being finalised.
These
include a provision to assure respondents that the enumerator has entered the
correct information, and the terms of reference between the NPR app developing
agency and the Government of India.
The
MHA responded to a set of questions asked by RTI activist S.Q. Masood, who told
The Hindu, that he wanted clarity on a host of issues connected to the exercise
before it is scheduled to begin with the first phase of House Listing and
Housing Census on April 1.
In
its response to the method of data capturing – whether there will be two
devices, or if the same device with two apps will be used – the MHA’s NPR
Division stated that the ‘NPR and Census are two different exercises’ and
‘there will be different applications for Census 2021 and NPR 2020’.
Growing
apprehensions
Given
that there are growing apprehensions among citizens, especially those within
the Muslim community, the RTI activist also sought to know whether there exists
a provision for respondents to know if information entered by the enumerator is
correct. The RTI response reads that ‘it is under process of finalisation’.
Another
question seeks information about the agencies which have been engaged by the
Union government to develop NPR application and related software, and a copy of
the terms of reference between them.
The
response to this too is that ‘it is under process of finalisation’.
The
response to a request to provide screenshots of the NPR app showing data
capturing too did not yield much.
“There
is a lot of fear about NPR among citizens. The timing of NPR with Census could
ruin both the operations as many have called for a boycott of the NPR. I wanted
clarity on the several aspects. Unfortunately, in the RTI reply I received form
MHA last month, the clarity I was hoping for was not there. I would be filing a
first appeal shortly,” Mr Masood said.