West Bengal to miss NPR meeting called by Union Home Ministry

West Bengal representatives will not be attending the meeting called by the Union Home Ministry' on Friday at Ambedkar bhawan. The agenda is to discuss the modalities for the 2020 Census and the National Population Register (NPR).

Reportedly, the Bengal government has given in writing that representatives from the state will not be a part of the meeting.

West Bengal has already declared that it will not participate in the NPR exercise now as it is a prelude to a country-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai will chair the meeting.

Modalities for the houselisting phase of the census and the NPR, to be carried out from April 1 to September 30 will be discussed during the meeting.

The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country. The database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars, as per sources.

The rules have a provision for fine of up to Rs 1,000 on those violating the NPR.

The data for NPR was last collected in 2010 along with the houselisting phase of the Census 2011. Updating of this data was done in 2015 by conducting door to door survey.