Himanta Biswa Sarma, the chief minister of Assam, announced on Saturday that those who had not applied to be included in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2014 would not get their Aadhaar cards issued 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, that is Dhubri, Barpeta and Morigaon are 103, 103 and 101 per cent respectively, against the estimated population. He said that this suggests that suspected foreigners have also obtained Aadhaar cards in these districts. He stated that as a result the state government has made the decision to implement a standard operating procedure for the future issuance 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 undertaken. Those who were found to have entered Assam before that date were to be included in the NRC, and be recognized as citizens. Those who had been barred from the NRC were to face a trail in the state’s Foreigner Tribunal system
Sarma further said 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. He added that the individual must have been an applicant. However, the question of whether the person’s name was included or excluded from the NRC is a different thing. “If you hadn’t even applied, that means that you weren’t even in Assam. From that, it can prima facie be taken that the person had entered Assam after 2014. From October 1, the availability of Aadhaar cards in Assam will be a difficult test. We will issue a tough SOP in the next 10-15 days,” he said.
It is to be noted 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 for a sizable number of people in the community.
Although the Central government is responsible for issuing Aadhaar, Sarma stated that by requiring a no-objection certificate from the concerned district collector, it has given the Assam government some discretionary power.