The Punjab government on Saturday denied media reports of training of field staff for the purpose of updation of the National Population Register (NPR) in the state, saying there was no question of going against the Assembly resolution on the issue.
The said training is a routine exercise related to the conduct of housing census, scheduled to take place in Punjab in May-June, and had absolutely nothing to do with NPR, said an official spokesperson, rejecting media reports to the contrary.
The spokesperson said the additional chief secretary (local government) Sanjay Kumar had, in fact, given categorical and clear instructions to this effect to the deputy commissioners (DCs) during a workshop held in Chandigarh recently.
In fact, the DCs were asked to exclude the NPR training chapter from this exercise, he added.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has on several occasions said that the Punjab government would fight the divisive and discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), as well as the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the NPR, on every forum. Endorsing this stand, the Resolution passed by the Legislative Assembly in January had also categorically rejected the NPR, the spokesperson pointed out.
The Resolution had stated: “Given the apprehensions about National Register of Citizens and that the National Population Register is a prelude to the NRC designed to deprive a section of persons from citizenship of India and implement CAA, this House further resolves that Central government should amend the forms/documentation associated with the NPR to allay such apprehension in the minds of the people and only thereafter undertake work of enumeration under NPR.”