31 lakh left out of Assam NRC register claims

Guwahati: About 31 lakh people out of the 40 lakh left out in the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) have submitted claims for the inclusion of their names in the National Register of Citizens in Assam. Saying the NRC authorities had also got objections against 2.6 lakh names included in the NRC’s final draft, sources in the NRC offices said the authorities would start issuing notices over all the claims and objections from January 31 to verify the documents.

Pointing out that the NRC authorities will start the process of verification of claims and objections from February 15, the sources said a majority of the objections were submitted in the past few days. The deadline for filing claims and objections ended on December 31.

The NRC is being updated based on March 24, 1971 as the cutoff date. This means foreigners who had migrated to India illegally after the NRC cutoff date will be regarded as illegal immigrants.

Admitting that the biggest challenge facing the NRC authorities is to keep track of the nine lakh people who had failed to file claims, the sources said neither the Union home ministry nor the state government had taken any decision on the fate of these people.

Saying that the pace of filing claims and objections had gathered momentum only in the last two weeks, the sources said the Centre’srecent removal of a clause which said documents obtained after August 31, 2015 were inadmissible to file claims is said to have led to the fast flow of applications over the past fortnight.

The window for 40.07 lakh of 3.29 crore applicants excluded from the complete draft had opened on September 25. However, the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the exercise, extended the last day for submission of claims and objections from December 15 to December 31 after the Assam government had said the panchayat election, held on December 5 and 9, had robbed people and officials of precious time.