The chief minister of Assam mentions the districts of Dhubri, Barpeta, and Morigaon as instances where the total number of Aadhaar cards issued surpasses the anticipated population.
Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, declared on Saturday that those who had not requested to be included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2014 would not be receiving Aadhaar cards from the government.
He gave the instances of Dhubri, Barpeta, and Morigaon to illustrate his point that the decision is a part of a bigger initiative by the Assam government, and that the total number of Aadhaar cards issued there exceeds the district’s estimated population.
According to him, the percentage of Aadhaar cards issued in these three predominantly Muslim districts—Dhubri, Barpeta, and Morigaon—are 103%, 103%, and 101%, respectively, compared to the estimated population estimates. According to him, this suggests that “suspected foreigners” have also obtained Aadhaar cards in these areas.
He stated that as a result, the state government has made the decision to implement a standard operating procedure for the future issuing of Aadhaar cards, which will require the provision of the NRC application number that was given to the applicant when they applied in 2015.
The NRC update process started in 2015 and is presently on hold following the release of a “final NRC” in 2019. In order to ascertain if an applicant had entered the state prior to March 24, 1971, the procedure had been carried out. Inclusion in the NRC and recognition as citizens were to follow for those who were discovered to have entered Assam prior to that date. The state’s Foreigner Tribunal system was to hold a trial for those who had been barred from the NRC.
3,30,27,661 persons submitted applications for the process between March and August of that year. August 2019 saw the publication of the final NRC, which excluded 19 lakh of these applicants. That NRC has not yet been informed, though.
Sarma stated that Aadhaar card issuance was a “universal process” and that individuals who were not among the 3.3 crore applicants for NRC would not receive one.
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The individual must have been an applicant; it matters not whether their name was added to or removed from the NRC. You couldn’t have been in Assam if you hadn’t even applied. That suggests, at least on the surface, that the individual entered Assam after 2014… As of October 1, obtaining an Aadhaar card in Assam will be a challenging task. We would release a strict SOP within the next ten to fifteen days, he stated, adding that the tea garden community would not face any challenges throughout the process because the state government has not yet been able to provide Aadhaar cards to a significant portion of the population.
Although the Central government is responsible for issuing Aadhaar, he stated that by requiring a no-objection certificate from the relevant District Collector, it has granted the Assam government some discretionary flexibility.
Shubhangi Gupta is a distinguished content writer and the visionary founder of The Unpleasant – Acha Nahi Sabse Sacha. With a Master’s degree in Commerce from University of Lucknow, Shubhangi has seamlessly blended her academic background with her passion for reading and writing, embarking on a successful career as a content writer since 2019.
