Political Exchange: Government to update National Population Register in 2020, experts discuss

The union cabinet has paved the way to update the National Population Register (NPR) next year. This exercise is to identity who are the "usual residents" and it will take place between April to September this year. This will be followed by a census in 2021. The cost of both the NPR and the census will be Rs 13,000 crore. Government called this a routine process and claimed that no documentary proof is needed and this will be done through self-certification. The government also claimed that no biometrics data will be collected. All this comes at a time when many fear that the NPR could set the stage for all all-India National Register of Citizens (NRC). But, addressing the media, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) minister Prakash Javadekar said that NPR and the NRC are not linked at all. Gautam Bhatia, Supreme Court (SC) lawyer, Praveen Swami, group consulting editor at Network18, Sanjay Jha, Congress spokesperson and Yogendra Yadav, national president at Swaraj India discussed this.