Image Source: TRIBUNE

Linking the NPR exercise with NRC, several opposition members today grilled Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla over additional columns in the NPR questionnaire during a meeting of the department-related standing committee on Home.

The National Population Register (NPR), which is set to take off on April 1 to enumerate usual residents of the country, has evoked large-scale controversy, as the government has inserted certain additional questions in the format, including date and place of birth of individuals’ parents.

Sources said during the deliberations on the allocation of fund for conducting NPR and Census exercise in the Budget, opposition members asked the Home Ministry officials the reasons for changing the NPR questionnaire vis-a-vis 2010, when the exercise was first conducted in the country.