(Image source from: hindustantimes.com)

BJP has come up with a process to identify Indian Citizenship. This will be done through a verified digital register to be able to recognize who is an illegal citizen in the country.

NRC is a digital process of identifying citizens through their names and demographic information. According to the citizenship act, an  Indian should live in India for 11 years. NRC will create a database and identify this data.

On Wednesday, Amit Shah stated that an NRC will be created across every region in India. This process was effective in Assam and they found out that there were 1.9 million people at risk of being called illegal immigrants.

However, Amit Shah stated that the NRC in Assam will be re-created as there was a flaw in this system and legal citizens were identified as illegal immigrants.

NRC is not appreciated or accepted, there are three parties opposing this, the CM of West Bengal says she will not follow it, an ally of BJP asks to reason out the implementation of NRC and the Congress feels it will divide people on the basis of religion.

The Government could start the process of NCR after the NPR is completed as the NPR records will have information such as birth and voter identity cards.

However, there is no information on whether the verification will happen through the information provided by the Census Commissioner of the NPR or there will be another body to identify the citizenship identity.

As per Assam NRC co-ordinator’s office, they spent around 1,600 crores for conducting this exercise and there were 50,000 State Government employees posted.

Points to know:

1. An illegal citizen must fulfill criteria under the Citizenship Act. Failing which, they will be termed as illegal immigrants. That being said, a person who enters India with or without valid documents and fails to stay for 11 years will be termed as an illegal immigrant.

2. An illegal immigrant will be jailed under the Foreigners Act 1946. This law is an exemption for the non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan who came to India on or before December 2014.

3. NCR is a citizen enumeration drive. NPR just identifies the number of citizens in the country through their aadhaar and unique identification number.

4. There is a close link in the NRC and Citizenship Bill, the Citizenship act does not show a distinction in people based on their religion. The Government plans on making a law wherein Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Christians, Parsi, Buddhists, and Jains from non-muslim countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh would be eligible for Indian Citizenship without restraints.

Condition - The applicant should have been living in India for the last 12 months as well as for 11 years in the last 14 years.

Benefit in the condition - The law reduces the requirement and changes 11 years to 6 years as a basic condition for all the applicants who belong to these religions from the three countries.

By Neha Makhija