Assam government to seek Supreme Court's clearance for Aadhaar cards to NRC rejects

Assam government on Thursday said that it would soon move the Supreme Court seeking a directive to the Centre to offer Aadhaar cards to over 27 lakh residents in the state whose biometrics were collected during the process to update the NRC.

Biometric details of over 27 lakh people were collected during claims and objections period of the NRC exercise in 2019, as per an SoP approved by the Supreme Court but they have not been given the Aadhaar cards yet as their names have not been included in the NRC list.

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"Today we held a meeting with representatives of 27 organisations, who helped during the NRC exercise. All of them expressed concern over the non-issuance of the Aadhaar cards to such a large number of people and the problems they are facing in availing benefits of various government schemes due to the lack of Aadhaar cards. They suggested that since the Aadhaar card is not a citizenship document, these people should be provided with the Aadhaar cards. So the government will soon submit an affidavit to the Supreme Court seeking a directive in this regard," senior minister in Assam government, Atul Bora told reporters in Guwahati after the meeting on Thursday.

The state government on March 21 told the State Assembly that since the Register General of India (RGI) has not yet published the final list of the NRC, the process to provide Aadhaar cards to those left out of the draft NRC remained on hold as per the SoP approved by the Supreme Court. So a clearance of the Supreme Court is required for issuing cards to these people.

Also Read | Assam: Aadhaar card eludes NRC rejects more than two years after biometric collection

DH in December last year highlighted how much people were suffering due to lack of Aadhar card as Aadhaar cards has been made mandatory even in opening a bank account, ration card or applying for a house under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

Over 19.06 lakh applicants in Assam were left out of the updated list of the NRC, which was prepared under the Supreme Court's monitoring in order to solve Assam's long foreigner problem.

March 24, 1971, was the cut-off date for the NRC exercise. The process to clear their names is on hold since the updated list of the NRC was published by the RGI in August 2019.

The BJP-led government in Assam moved the Supreme Court seeking re-verification of 20% applications in districts bordering Bangladesh and 10% in the rest of the districts. It argued that the final list of the NRC was not properly done and many foreigners made it to the list while genuine citizens were left out. The government has said that the process to clear the names of those left out of the NRC list would depend on the Supreme Court's further order.

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