National Register of Citizens

Contents

• What is NRC?
• Documents Required for NRC
• Consequences of not getting registered
• NRC in Assam

What is NRC?

The National Register of Citizens or NRC is a register in which citizens of India are registered with their names, addresses, and other details. The register currently includes the names of the people who were residents of India before 1951. It was created in 1951 based on the census of 1951 and it has not been updated again till again, except for the state of Assam which took place in 2018.

Documents required for NRC in India are:

Two types of Document are required for inclusion under the NRC

1. List A Documents required for NRC
2. List B Documents required for NRC

1. List A Documents required for NRC

These documents are required to prove the residents as citizens of India. This List documents will normally include the previous generation.

• People whose names appear in the NRC list of 1951
• People whose names appear in any of the Electoral Rolls up to March 24, 1971
• Descendants of any of these people mentioned above
• People who came from another region on or after January 1, 1966, but before March 25, 1971, and registered themselves with the Foreigners Registration Regional Officer (FRRO) and were declared as Indian citizens by the Foreigner Tribunal
• All Indian citizens including their relatives who moved to Assam after March 24, 1971. (These people need to provide residency proofs of other states of India.)
• Voters can apply for the inclusion of their names in the updated NRC. Although their names will be included only when the appropriate Foreigner Tribunal declares them as non-foreigners
• Persons who can provide any one of the documents issued up to midnight of March 24, 1971, as mentioned in the list of documents relevant for citizenship.

2. List B Documents required for NRC

These documents are required to establish a relationship with an ancestor, namely, parents or grandparents or great-grandparents who are already citizens of India as per the List A documents. The documents required under this list are:

• Birth Certificate
• Land Document
• Board/University Certificate
• Bank/LIC/Post Office records
• Circle Officer/GP Secretary Certificate in case of marries women
• Electoral Roll
• Ration Card
• Any other legally acceptable document

Consequences of NOT getting registered

There can be certain consequences if you don't get yourself registered under the National Register of Citizens of India. 

If you are unable to produce any of these above-mentioned documents then 

• You might get deported from the state in which you are currently living in.
• You can get imprisoned due to no issue of residency.
• There can be further consequences of the detention also in the Detention Centres.

NRC in Assam, 2019

Assam being a border stated has faced the problem of illegal immigration from Bangladesh as well other states of India like Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, etc. The National Register was created in 1951 but was not updated since then. In 1983, the Illegal Migrants Act was passed in the Parliament to create a separate tribunal process to identify the illegal migrants. In 2005, the Supreme Court of India declared this Act as unconstitutional, and the Government of India agreed to update the NRC in Assam, but the progress was unexpected and unsatisfactory for nearly a decade until the Supreme Court started directing and monitoring the process in 2013.

The updated NRC of Assam was published on 31 August 2019 and contained 31 million names out of the 33 million population while 2 million were left out.

Later on, the BJP government decided to apply and update NRC in the whole Nation.

References

• National Register of Citizens, Assam
• India's BIggest Detention Camp
• Assam NRC Report

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