NPR process from April 2020: G Kishan Reddy

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy announced that National Population Register (NPR) data will be collected along with the house listing phase of Census 2021 from April to September 2020. Population enumeration will take place from February 9 to 28 next year. He said that lakhs of enumerators drawn from Central, State and local bodies will take part in collecting the census with the help of a mobile app.

Addressing media here on Sunday, he said that personal mobile phones loaded with the app would be allowed to collect data and the government would provide mobile phones to those who don’t have one. Paper questionnaires were also prepared at places where there could be signal problem. He said that population enumeration would start from 35 States, 640 districts, 5,924 revenue



divisions, 7,933 towns and 6,40,932 villages simultaneously.

He said that preparations were being made to monitor the process with the help of the app and through printed paper available in 18 Indian languages. He said enumerator would not insist on submission of any proofs. Stressing that NPR and Census are one and the same, Kishan said it is the constitutional obligation that such data is collected every 10 years. He called upon States to implement Civil Registration System as details of only 86% of births and 78.1% of deaths in 2016 reached the Centre.

He said detention centres in Assam and Bengaluru were set up by the Congress governments and they were meant for those who violated immigration laws and over stayed in the country.