People's feedback negative, Andhra Pradesh cabinet sets NPR aside

VIJAYAWADA: A day after urging the Centre to remove the additional questions in NPR 2020, the AP Cabinet on Wednesday decided to keep National Population Register (NPR) in abeyance in the state. The NPR 2020 has several new questions added when compared to the previous exercise carried out in 2010. The additional questions relate to place and date of birth of the parents of the head of family.
The AP Cabinet felt that the government had received negative feedback from the people on the proposed implementation of NPR 2020. People have been raising objections to some of the additional questions included in the NPR and some sections of people are apprehensive of the intentions of the data collected during the exercise.
On Tuesday chief minister YS Jaganmohan Reddy made an appeal to the Central government to revert to the 2010 questions for the NPR 2020. The issue was discussed in the state Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The Cabinet appealed to the Central government to limit the questions to the 2010 NPR and drop the new questions added to the list to seek information from citizens. As the Central government is yet to respond, the state Cabinet had decided to keep the NPR exercise in abeyance.
Minister for information and public relations Perni Venkatramayya (Nani) told media persons that the Cabinet had discussed the objections received from several sections of people and felt that the objections were reasonable. "The doubts of the people are to be cleared and their objections are to be honoured and answered," the minister said.