BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday sought the personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on sharing of the national population register (NPR) database to facilitate implementation of the Food Security Act in Odisha.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, Naveen said the Odisha Government has decided to digitise the beneficiaries for the National Food Security Act on the basis of the NPR created in 2011 census as it is the near- complete database of people of the country.
The State Government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Registrar General of India (RGI) in March, 2013 for sharing the NPR database. “But till date, we have received NPR data of only one of the 30 districts,” Naveen said and added that due to non-availability of the NPR database, digitisation work is not progressing.
The Chief Minister said the RGI has been requested on several occasions to share the digitised NPR database of the remaining 29 districts. The issue had also been taken up with the Union Home Secretary and the Union Home Minister, he said and added that he had also written to the then prime minister Manmohan Singh in April, 2013.
The Act envisages digitising the database of priority households (beneficiaries) before implementation of its provisions. The States have the responsibility to finalise the criteria for exclusion and inclusion and identification of the beneficiaries. The Act was to be implemented by July 4, 2014, but the Centre has extended the deadline by three months.