Union Cabinet approves Rs 8500 crore for National Population Register

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved an amount of 8500 crore for the National Population Register (NPR). The process of NPR may begin in April next year. NPR is a list of 'usual residents' of the country. For the purpose of NPR, 'usual resident' is defined as a person who has been residing in a local area for the last six months or more or a person who wants to live in that area for the next six months or more.

Union Minister Prakash Javadekar: Cabinet has approved the conducting of census of India 2021 and updating of National Population Register. It is self declaration, no document, bio-metric etc required for it pic.twitter.com/jkCbM89BhH

— ANI (@ANI) December 24, 2019

Giving information about the NPR on 24 December, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that no documents are needed in it. People can also register through the app. He said that now the census will be extended in a digital way. 

The data for National Population Register was collected in 2010 along with the houselisting phase of Census of India 2011. The updation of this data was done during 2015 by conducting door to door survey. The digitization of the updated information has been completed.

According to the website of the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, it has now been decided to update the NPR from April 2020 to September 2020, with the house listing phase of 2021 census houses. This work will be done in all the remaining states and union territories except Assam. A gazetted notification in this regard was issued in August this year. It will be mandatory for every common resident of India to register in the NPR.