NRC misses 'reasons' date ... Excluded queue up, told to return later

The crowd at an NRC seva kendra in Guwahati on Friday. (UB Photos)

TT, Aug 11, 2018, Guwahati: People flocking to NRC seva kendras in Assam on Friday to learn the reasons behind their exclusion from the draft National Register of Citizens were told to come back after Sunday.

The date from which the reasons are to be revealed had already been postponed once, from Tuesday to Friday.

Also, the forms to file claims and objections were supposed to be available online and at the seva kendras from Friday, but they were not.

The NRC authority had published media advertisements on Friday saying: "Forms for claim, objection and correction will be made available at the NSKs (NRC seva kendras) and also available for download from www.nrcassam.nic.in from August 10, 2018 onwards."

However, an official at a seva kendra said: "We have not received the claims and objection forms from the NRC authority to distribute among the people."

An official at NRC coordinator Prateek Hajela's office said: "The forms are not available online. I can tell you only this and nothing else."

At the Dispur Seva Kendra 28 at Hatigaon, officials asked people to come back on Monday or later.

"We are arranging the documents. The number of applicants is huge. We will start telling the people the reasons for non-inclusion from Monday," the verification officer at the centre said.

Ashish Dey, a Hatigaon resident, said: "My wife's name was not in the draft (published on July 30). I came here to know the reason as they were saying the information would be available from Friday. But they asked me to come after Sunday."

Seva kendras in other parts of the state, such as those at Kheroni in West

Karbi Anglong and Nandapur in Hojai, too turned people back.

An official said people whose names were in the first draft, published last December 31, but not in the final draft were the only ones so far to have been told the reason for the exclusion - through individual letters.

"But those whose names were not on either list will have to apply to know the reason," he said.

On Friday, some of the seva kendras handed out the application forms through which people would have to seek the reasons for their exclusion from the draft NRC, but asked them to come back on Monday or later to submit the filled-in forms.

Over 40 lakh of the 3.29 crore applicants are missing from the draft NRC.

Hajela had earlier informed the Supreme Court, which is monitoring the update exercise, that 1.5 lakh people who were in the first draft would be left out of the final draft.