Background

A group of ministers created after the Kargil war recommended compulsory registration of all residents in India, to facilitate the preparation of a national register of citizens and curb illegal migration. It had said that all Indian citizens should be given a multi-purpose national identity card (MPNIC) and non-citizens should be issued identity cards of a different colour and design.

In 2010 Registrar General of India collected data for a National Population Registry during Census 2011 enumeration. In 2015, this data was further updated by conducting a door-to-door survey. However, the government picked out Aadhaar as the key vehicle for transfer of government benefits in 2016, while putting NPR on hold due to slow progress of NPR.

Through recent notification in August 2019 by the Registrar General of India, the idea has now been revived and exercise of updating the 2015 NPR with additional data has begun and was to be completed in 2020.