Kerala govt asks district collectors to refrain from conducting NPR process, warns of disciplinary action against officials

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has asked its district collectors to ensure that National Population Registry (NPR) process is not carried out and warned of disciplinary action against the officials if the state government’s decision is not followed. Principal Secretary (General Administration), KR Jyothilal on Thursday wrote to all district collectors of state. “As you are aware, the government has stayed all the activities connected with the NPR operations in the State proposed to be conducted along with the first phase of Census operations-2021. Now it has come to the notice of the government that some Census functionaries are mentioning NPR operations also while sending communications connected with the Census operations-2021 to the other Census functionaries,” he wrote. [caption id=“attachment_6359921” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan. ANI[/caption] Further, it asked district collectors to personally ensure that such activities are not repeated. “Hence l am requesting you to personally ensure that such actions are not repeated in future failing which disciplinary action shall be initiated against the delinquent officers,” said the communication by Principal Secretary. The Union Home Ministry has convened a meeting on Friday to discuss the modalities for the 2020 Census and the NPR, officials said. Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai will chair the meeting which will be attended by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and Chief Secretaries and Census Directors of all states. The meeting will discuss the modalities for the houselisting phase of the census and the NPR, to be carried out from 1 April to 30 September, a Home Ministry official said. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced that representatives from her state will not attend the meeting. A few state governments, including West Bengal, have declared that they will not participate in the NPR exercise now as it is a prelude to a country-wide National Register of Citizens (NRC).