Guwahati: The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has detected massive anomalies in the updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.
The CAG in its report for the year ended 2020, which was submitted to the Assam assembly on Saturday, said that due to lack of proper planning, as many as 215 software utilities were added in a haphazard manner to the core software.
“Due to lack of proper planning in this regard, to the extent of 215 software utilities were added in a haphazard manner to the core software. It was done without following the due process of either software development or selection of vendors through eligibility assessment following a national tendering,” the CAG report said.
It said that in the NRC updating exercise, highly secure and reliable software was required.
The CAG report said that the haphazard development of software and utilities for NRC data capture and correction posed the risk of data tempering without leaving any audit trail.
The audit trail could have ensured accountability for the veracity of NRC data. Thus, the intended objective of preparing a valid error-free NRC has not yet been met, it said.
The CAG report further pointed out that the project cost for the NRC has escalated from Rs 288.18 Crore to Rs 1602.66 Crore due to the time over which was initially conceptualized.
Former NRC co-ordinator Hitesh Dev Sarma had filed an FIR with the vigilance and anti-corruption wing of the state government complaining about corruption and money laundering by his predecessor Prateek Hajela.
NRC is an exercise to remove illegal immigrants. The draft list was published in July 2018, excluding 19.06 lakh out of 3.30 crore applications for the lack of adequate documents for establishing their Indian citizenship.
In Assam, those who entered India before March 25, 1971, have to prove their citizenship.