ASSAM TIMES POST
Guwahati : The Assam Public Works (APW), primary petitioner in the Write Petition in the Supreme Court for NRC in the state, Monday demanded a high-level probe into the alleged “corruption probably committed by the previous NRC authority with close aids”.
In a memorandum to the new State Coordinator, National Register of Citizens in Guwahati, the APW also petitioned for a third-Party Audit by internationally acclaimed organisation into the functioning of the Software’s, Application and IT Infrastructure utilised in the process of preparing the NRC.
A delegation of APW led by its president Aabhijeet Sharma met the new NRC State Coordinator and submitted their memorandum stating the leading rights group of Assam has been raising some vital points to be clarified by the authority since the Draft NRC was first published in December 2017 as the manifested result was much below the level of expectation of the people of Assam to get a flawless NRC.
Referring to the software used in the NRC process from private developer companies, the memorandum claimed “Hundreds of numbers of different software were used in updating the NRC. Ideally, there should be a test run for every software to judge its performance, and all the software need some time to get it settled”.
“But as per the information available, it seems that most of the software were put into the verification without any test whatsoever leading to serious malfunction, which ultimately resulted in wrong entries into the NRC. We also suspect that manipulation of data, which can be deleted only through an IT audit which was never done during the process of updating the NRC”, the APW asserted.
“The third party quality check done by the then State Coordinator was through an agency employed by himself, and they performed as per his direction only, leaving a space for us to question whether it was authentic or not”, it maintained.
Stating a large number of “fake certificates have been detected, these are of no value so far as NRC updating is concerned as most of such fake documents are used for the second generation (like birth Certificates of present generation), the memo contended “Most of the first generation of the Legacy persons has used Electoral Roll as link document, which is not dependable at all’.
Explaining further, the APW argued, “The normal practice followed by the illegal migrants is to enter their names in the post 1971 Electoral Rolls assuming as offspring of someone whose name figured in the pre-1971 Electoral Roll, as there were no fool proof methods of detecting this fraudulent activity in the Electoral Revision”.
Verification of ‘Family Tree’ would have been the fool proof method of NRC verification had it been done properly, they said, adding, “In the Family Tree verification, all the offspring of a ‘Legacy Person’ were asked to submit their family details which were compared through software. The Family Trees of the genuine offspring match and the Family Tree of the persons who assumes a name in the pre-1971 documents as their ancestors do not match with that of the genuine offspring”.
Explaining why Family Tree verification did not work properly, the APW said: Almost all the Data Entry Operators (DEO) working at the NSKs (NRC Seva Kendras) in the immigrant dominated areas are from the immigrant community itself. This is due to the fact that the remuneration received by the DEOs is a meagre Rs. 5,000 per month though the System Integrator got around Rs 14,000 PM per DEO. As a result, the DEOs are recruited locally as Rs 5,000 PM not sufficient for a DEO to work from a distant place.
Pointing out the DEOs, almost all Local Registrars of Citizens Registration and other verification Officers working in the immigrant dominated areas were from the immigrant community, the memo said before engagement of the DEOs, their citizenship was never verified though police verification regarding common criminal activities.
The SCNRC’s attention was also drawn t\o complains from many citizens filed before NRC authority that due to affinity towards their own community, these Verifying Officers with the help of the DEO, both from the immigrant community, manipulated the Family Tree verification to include the names of suspected foreigners in the draft NRC.
The complaint was verified and it was suggested that the Family Tree verification of the immigrant dominated area where verification officers and the DEOs are from the immigrant community itself, or either of them is from immigrant community, should have been cross verified by another set of officers whose citizenship is beyond doubt, said Aabhijeet Sharma.
Stating a software was prepared through which Family Tree verification data already uploaded could be re-verified, he alleged “But for some unknown reason, the previous state Coordinator, NRC did not allow the re-verification”.
Claiming “corruption was committed by the then NRC State Coordinator with his close aids, the APW contended that the central Government spent the whole expenditure of Ra 1600 crore for the procedure through the then NRC Coordinator, the memo petitioned the new SCNRC to enquire the whole process “because a large number of illegalities, financial irregularities have been committed in making various expenditures.”
