Amid protests, MHA official says no plans to prepare NRC on NPR basis

The government has no plans as of now to carry out an exercise to prepare a National Register of Citizens (NRC) for the whole country on the basis of data to be collected during the updating of National Population Register (NPR) next year, officials said on Tuesday.

The remarks by the home ministry officials came in the backdrop of the controversy over the NRC and the Citizenship Amendment Act.

"There is no proposal as of now to prepare NRC on the basis of NPR data for the whole country," an official said.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also said that there has been no discussion in the government on the NRC.

"Since my government first came to power in 2014, I want to tell 130 crore countrymen, there has never been a discussion on this NRC," he said, noting that it was done only in Assam due to a Supreme Court order.