Debarshi Das & Prasenjit Bose - Assam NRC: Govt Clueless On How Many Illegal Immigrants Actually Live in India, RTI Shows

By Dilip -
The process of updating Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) has been a difficult and distressing test for the state's population. Over 40 lakh people were left out of the draft published in July, leading to chaos and confusion as those not included try to find documents that will prove that they are legal residents of the country. When the Supreme Court said in December 2014 that the NRC should be prepared in a time-bound manner, its order underlined the magnitude of Bangladeshi infiltration by quoting a vital piece of statistics:

On 14th July, 2004, in response to an unstarred question pertaining to deportation of illegal Bangladeshi migrants, the Minister of State, Home Affairs, submitted a statement to Parliament indicating therein that the estimated number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants into India as on 31st December, 2001 was 1.20 crores, out of which 50 lakhs were in Assam.

However, a deeper dive into the numbers shows that the Supreme Court may have relied on hearsay to issue the order initiating the NRC updation process. A reply given by the Ministry of Home Affairs to an RTI application submitted by one of the authors shows that the government does not even know how many illegal immigrants are residing in the country.

Where did the '50 lakh' figure come from? : This is the only estimate of the number of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam that the SC judgement contained. The rest of the judgement had references to documents where Bangladeshi infiltration is mentioned, but no estimate was provided.

Magnitude matters. "50 lakh" is a very large number for Assam, whose population was less than 2.70 crore in 2001. If nearly one-fifth of the state's population comprises illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, tough measures would appear reasonable and justified... read more:
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2018/11/16/assam-nrc-govt-clueless-on-how-many-illegal-immigrants-actually-live-in-india-rti-shows_a_23591448/?utm_hp_ref=in-homepage

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