What is NRC? NRC Simplified | For Dummies

National Register of Citizens is popularly referred to as NRC. It is an official record that includes all the demographic information about all the individuals who qualify to be citizens as per Citizenship Act, 1955.

Till now only NRC for Assam has been maintained and we will talk about it later in the article. Though after Assam, Home Minister of India (Amit Shah) has announced that NRC would be extended to the entire country.

Citizen of India as per Citizenship Act – NRC

An individual can be deemed citizen of India under the following conditions –

Citizenship by Birth

1. Every person born in India between 26th January 1950 to 1st July 1987
2. Born between 1st July 1987 and commencement of Citizenship Act(2003 amendment) and either of parents is a citizen of India at the time of birth
3. Born after the Citizenship Act(2003 Amendment), either – both the parents are Indian Citizens

Citizenship by Descent

1. For people born between 26th Jan 1950 & 10th Dec 1992 – they are citizens of India if their father was an Indian citizen at the time of birth.
2. For individuals born after 10th December 1992 – they are citizens of India if either of their parents is an Indian citizen at the time of birth
3. 3rd December 2004 onwards, any individual born out of India will not be considered an Indian citizen unless his birth is registered with an Indian Consulate within 1 year of his birth and contingent to him not holding any other passport.

Citizenship at the commencement of Indian Constitution

People living in the Indian territory as on November 1949 end became Indian citizens through relevant provisions of the constitution. There was also a provision to give migrants from Pakistan(earlier India) citizenship of India.

Citizenship by Naturalisation

This can be acquired by a foreigner if he has been in India for 12 months and 11 out of 14 years before the 12 months.

NRC in Assam

In Assam, for getting their names in NRC people had to apply and produce documents of their citizenship or their ancestor’s citizenship & their relation with the ancestor. For Assam, the rule was a bit different and individuals had to produce documents issued before March 24, 1971, to prove Indian citizenship of themselves and their ancestors.

The following list of documents was valid –

NRC Forms List A

Passport, LIC Policy, Birth Certificate, State Board or University Certificate, Court Records, Bank or Post Office Accounts, Government Service/Employment, Government Issued License, Refugee Certificate, Permanent residence certificate, Land or tenancy records, Electoral rolls up to 24th March 1971 or 1951 NRC

Above mentioned documents should be dated before 24th March 1971. If born after 1971, an individual could show any of the above mentioned documents of their ancestor and one of the document mentioned below to establish the connection

NRC Forms List B

Birth Certificate, Property Document, Board/University Certificate, Bank/LIC/Post Office Records, Panchayat Certificate in case of married women, electoral roll, ration card or any other legally acceptable document.

So for those not in the Assam NRC have to approach Foreigners’ Tribunal. Only a Foreigners Tribunal can declare if you are a foreigner or not.

What about Nationwide NRC?

For Assam alone it took 52,000 people to work long hours and create the NRC. If NRC is implemented in entire India, it would be a long and tedious task as 130 Crore & more individuals would be applying for citizenship.

As of now, the government has just announced that NRC would be extended to the entire country but have not yet released the conditions and eligibility for NRC. But if NRC is implemented, anyone who does have the documents as required will be taken to the detention centers(similar to those created in Assam) and they will have to appeal to Foreigners Tribunal to get Indian Citizenship.

As you can see, the importance of managing your own documents and more importantly sharing it with your family members. With Sorted AI you can keep your documents organized, secure and shareable with closed ones.