Assam to send NRC rejection slips to 19 lakh people from March 20

Guwahati, Mar 03: The NRC Authority plans to start issuing the 'Rejection Slip' to over 19 lakh people excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) from March 20, the Assam government said on Monday.

The Rejection Slip will mention the reasons for excluding a person's name from the final NRC.

At present, work related to scanning of "speaking order" is going on and around 12 per cent job is left, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said while replying to a written query by Congress MLA Rekibuddin Ahmed.

"After this work gets completed, there is a plan to issue the Rejection Slip from 20/03/2020," said Patowary on behalf of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal who also holds the Implementation of Assam Accord portfolio.

In a separate query by Congress MLA Abul Kalam Rasheed Alam, the minister said a total of Rs 1,348.13 crore have been allotted for the NRC update work.

The final NRC was published on August 31 last year by excluding 19,06,657 persons. A total of 3,11,21,004 names were included out of 3,30,27,661 applicants.

Before publishing the final NRC, the Centre had extended the time limit for filing of appeals in Foreigners Tribunals with the Rejection Slips by the excluded people to 120 days from 60 days and necessary amendments were made.

However, the process got inordinately delayed and no tentative schedule for issuing Rejection Slips was announced.