GUWAHATI: West Bengal, whose chief minister Mamata Banerjee has kicked up a storm over the exclusion of 40 lakh people from the NRC, was one of the biggest defaulters in the verification process pertaining to people who belong to a different state but reside in Assam because of job or marriage. West Bengal returned only about 6% of the 1.14 lakh documents that were sent to it by the NRC authorities, according to NRC state coordinator's submission in the Supreme Court.

Other big defaulters were Bihar, Chandigarh, Manipur and Meghalaya, which returned just 2 to 7% of the documents after verification. The names of at least five lakh people could not be included in the final draft of the NRC because other states and central organisations failed to check and send back the results of the verification of citizenship claims made by these people. All this, thanks to red tape.

NRC state coordinator Prateek Hajela had sent 5.7 lakh documents to 25 states and Union territories which had issued certificates to people belonging to those states and UTs but residing in Assam due to job or marriage. These documents included educational certificates, birth certificates and documents related to the electoral process issued by the states of their earlier domicile.

In March, Hajela had urged the Supreme Court to direct these states to return the documents after verification and said the NRC could only wait till May for these verified documents. Besides, he had stated in his report that several other organizations - banks, UIDAI, CBSE, external affairs ministry (for passports), and various central and state government departments - had not returned 2.37 lakh documents after verification. Only about 40% of verified documents had reached the NRC authorities in time for preparation of the final draft.

One of the biggest ramifications of this delay is members of the same family getting different verdicts. The absence of verified documents of a woman, for instance, has kept her out of the citizen list while her husband and children have been included. The same applies to families where a man might be from a different state, but has settled here. His children, who have to use their father's legacy data, will also not be included in the NRC.

