Rs 1600 crores misused in entire NRC process, employees harassed: United Trust of Assam

‘United Trust of Assam’ (UTA), an organisation based in Assam, held a symposium at the PWD Training and Convention Centre Auditorium, Guwahati today on "NRC in the perspective of present and future". The meeting that saw the attendance of retired co-ordinator of NRC Mr. Hitesh Dev Sharmah, IAS, Abhijit Sarma of Assam Public Works, noted Journalist Naba Thakuria, spoke in details of the prevailing status of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the flaws that is creating a major headache for the people of the state. The meeting was presided over by Dwijen Barthakur.

“People of the state expected that NRC would be a protective armour for the subjects of Assam, but to its contrary and utter disgust same resulted in just another suicidal self goal,” mentioned United Trust of Assam in its press statement. 

Slamming Prateek Hajela, the former state NRC co-ordinator of engaging in widespread corruption and money laundering, the UTA remarked, “Mr. Hazela, has done rampant corruption and adopted all hide and seek criminal conspiracies to include millions of illegal nationals in the NRC. There can not be another example of blatant illegality and worse, AASU and its partners were celebrating on publication of draft NRC, which was infact a dooms day for the future of Assam. A beautiful state is on the verge of becoming a Kashmir like situation. Voices were raised by concerned people and institutes against the corrupt practice of Mr Hazela, but, as it appears State or Central Government is keeping a deaf ear to it.”

“Question arises, whether all these excercises were conducted to give citizenship to undeserving thugs who entered the country with all ill intention and to capture power by vote? Some *1600 crore is ill spent and thousands of government employees were harassed alone to allow a corrupt officer go scot free after doing all these criminal mesh. These money spent from the exchequer are public money and people misusing it with vested interest must pay the price,” added the statement.

Citing numbers of facts and demographic changes that has caused massive confusion in the final NRC list, leading to many names being left out and some doubtful names being incorporated, the statement highlighted, “From the year 1971 to 91 while Hindu population has increased 42% Muslim population have increased 77.42%. During these period the rise of Muslim population in some of the districts are as follows Dhubri 71.13%, Kokrajhar 98.47%, Goalpara 93.83, Bongaigaon 88.12%, Barpeta 64.21, Nalbari 93.40, Darrang 108.1%, Sonitpur 132.9%, Lakhimpur 200.52, Tinsukia 89.56, Golaghat 97.24 and Nagaon 81.91% etc. From the cited data it is crystal clear that there is a grave situation which need all out effort to redress, but, sorry state of affair is there is no serous awareness neither any effort to redress.”

“Some facts and figure from the census of 1971 are mind boggling, it is stated here that from 1901 to 1951, the rise in population of state demography was 17 to 20%, most astounding figure comes in the rise of population of Assam in these 10 years, an increase to 34.98%. In 60 years from 1901 to 1961, the rate of rise in population in Assam was the highest among the country. While in whole of India rise in population in 60 years 84.24%, the rise in population of Assam was 229.43%. From 1961-71 the increase in population in whole of India averaged in 24.8%, while in Assam and Tripura the figure for the same period stood at a staggering 34.95% &34.21. From 1901 to 1971 in 70 years rise in the population of Assam stood at 344.58 while figure in Tripura stood at 797.93 (Census of India, 1971 series-1, India part-ii-A (1), General population Tables page 124 and 125),” concluded the statement. 

It needs mention here that the NRC was a process envisaged as a comprehensive record of citizens in Assam, identified by the law of the land. This lengthy process began following a Supreme Court order in 2013, with the state’s nearly 33 million people having to prove that they were Indian nationals prior to March 24, 1971.
The updated final NRC was released on August 31, with over 1.9 million applicants failing to make it to the list.