Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen(AIMIM) have come out in protest against the move for updating the database of registered births and deaths on a national level..
Terming the move for updating the database of registered births and deaths ‘unwarranted’, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) alleged that the move was aimed at creating a base for the NRC.
The party, taking to its official twitter handle on Sunday asked the people not to cooperate in the NPR updating process.
“No to updating National Population Register. If the government persists in its NPR project, the Left and democratic forces must appeal to the people not to cooperate in the NPR updating process and only answer the questionnaires for the actual census”, the CPI (Marxist) stated.
Quoting rules of NPR, the CPI (Marxist) said that the rules clearly state that the NRC will be finalized after the verification of the National Population Register. “And the NPR is, in the words of the home ministry, the first state of the NRC”, alleged the party, adding that the state government’s personnel areto undertake the NPR updating. “Like Kerala, the state government concerned should facilitate the Census enumeration and not the NPR updating”, it asked.
Sitaram Yechury also termed the centralizing database of births and deaths unnecessary.
This move of centralizing database of births and deaths is an unnecessary step. It smacks of surveillance and linking it to the most exclusionary projects of this govt-NPR-NRC-CAA”, he said, adding that the registration of births and deaths must remain with the states.
Echoing the same sentiment, president of AIMIM Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday also protested the updating of database of births and deaths doubting its intent.
“The government wants to amend registration of births and deaths Act-1969.The amendment will allow central government to create a unified database of all registered births and deaths. Currently, this is carried out by states. But now union will be allowed to collect data”, he said, asking why is this beingtaken away by the centre from state’s power.
He said that 38% of kids under the age bracket of 5 don’t have birth certificates. “Even among those, who had their births registered, some still don’t have certificates. People, who were born earlier, have even less chance of having registered births or certificates since they were not born in hospitals”, heargued.
He further stated that nearly 82.3% of children falling under the age group of 5 in the richest group had their births registered and possessed the birth certificates compared 40.7% in the poorest wealth group.He alleged that majority of minority, SC,ST and OBCs people will suffer the most because of the creation of centralized database on births and registrations
