Release of NRC draft delayed by floods

The final draft of Assam’s National Register of Citizens (NRC) will not be released on June 30 as scheduled, owing to the heavy floods in the Barak Valley, NRC State coordinator Prateek Hajela said here on Thursday.

He added that a petition was filed in the Supreme Court last week, seeking more time to prepare the draft. The apex court has fixed the date of hearing on July 2. The NRC is being updated under the Supreme Court supervision to weed out illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, security across the State has been stepped up ahead of the publication of the draft to prevent any untoward incident. Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said the names of all “genuine Indians” would be incorporated in the list.

The first NRC draft was released on January 1, in which the names of 1.9 crore of the 3.29 crore applicants were included.

Assam, which faced an influx of people from Bangladesh since the early 20th century, is the only State with an NRC, which was first prepared in 1951.