Modi government to start population register scorned by opposition leaders

Bloomberg

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said it will start building a comprehensive identity database of all those living in India, amid a growing public uproar over the administration’s move to grant citizenship to undocumented migrants based on religion.
The plan to create a National Population Register has been criticized by the opposition as a precursor to countrywide citizens register that, along with a new citizenship law, is driving angry protests across India.
The census and national population register is a repeat of a 2010 exercise to list residents and will not require respondents to submit any proof of identity, Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Information & Broadcasting, told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The government allotted 130 billion rupees ($1.8 billion) to the population register, which will be part of India’s census exercise to be carried out between April to September 2020, the minister said.­­­
“The plan will help the government reach benefits to the targeted beneficiaries,” Javadekar said. “It is self-declaration, no document, proof or biometric will be required because we trust the people.”
Even as Javadekar on Tuesday denied any links between the two processes, in July 2014 Kiren Rijiju, the then junior home minister in Modi’s cabinet, told Parliament that the government had decided to create a citizens registry based on the information collected under the NPR exercise. The National Population Register, which is tied to India’s census exercise, is the first step towards a nationwide citizens register, according to a government statement by the previous Congress-led government in 2012.
Although details of the links aren’t immediately clear, opposition-ruled states including Kerala and West Bengal have halted all work related to the population register citing a possibility the NPR data could be used for a citizen’s registry.