Yogi govt postpones NPR exercise due to COVID-19 lockdown

LUCKNOW: In wake of COVID-19 pandemic, the Yogi Adityanath led Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday has announced that it will postpone the National Population Register (NPR) 2021 registration work in the state.

“Keeping in view these issues, the first phase of Census 2021 and updating of NPR, which was to begin on various dates decided by the state and union territory governments beginning April 1 and various related field activities, are postponed until further orders”, the statement read.

Earlier in March, the exercise to update the National Population Register (NPR) and the first phase of the Census-2021 have been deferred till further orders, due to the lockdown 

The two exercises were supposed to be carried out from April 1 to September 30.

In December last year, the Union Cabinet had announced allocation of Rs 3,941.35 crore for updating the NPR.

There have been opposition from several state governments to the NPR and some of them even adopted resolution expressing their opposition to the exercise.

The states which have been opposing the NPR include Kerala, West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.

However, most of them also said they will cooperate with the house listing phase of the Census.

The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country.