Press : Shri Prakash Javadekar on Citizen Charter Bill 2011 & National Population Registry

Press statement issued by  BJP National Spokesperson and MP, Shri Prakash Javadekar

Citizen Charter Bill 2011 

The Cabinet decision clearing the Citizen Charter Bill 2011is a direct intrusion on the domain of States as it becomes mandatory for all states to adopt the same act. More than ten states have already enacted a Citizen Charter Act or Public Services Guarantee Act in their respective states. The states of Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttrakhand and Himachal Pradesh have their own laws in place. Of these states, many have provisions that are much better than the proposed Central Act.

Item number 41 of List II of the Constitution gives states a clear power to enact for the State Public Services. Therefore, the Central government resorting to item no 8 of List III to give force to the Citizen Charter Bill is essentially an affront on the federal spirit of the Indian Constitution.

The Central government can and should enact Citizen Charter for central services but should not encroach upon the states’ domain. At best, the Centre can suggest a model law.

National Population Registry 

The government has finally accepted that the National Population Registry (NPR) work is lagging behind because of insufficient biometric data available from Aadhar. In a reply to an unstarred question number 995 on 06/03/2013 the government has clarified that the data collection in paper format for creating the NPR has been completed for the entire country along with the house listing and housing census in 2010. The scanning of these filled NPR schedules for about 26 crore applications has also been completed. The work of data entry of more than 114 crore records is also complete. But, biometric data has been captured for only 11 crore persons.

This makes it very clear that for the biometric data the much important NPR work is held up. Ultimately what matters is the citizenship record and the citizenship card. This is important from the point of view of National Security.

In reply to another question the government has informed that the biometric data of only 22 crore people has been collected.  Even if we read both these answers together, the fact remains that the NPR work is held up for want of biometric data.

The BJP demands that the government should come out with a clear roadmap to create Citizenship Register on the basis of NPR at the earliest.

(R.K.Sinha)
Secretary
BJP Parliamentary Party