National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) is voter registration project of the

Election Commission of India The Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional body. It was established by the Constitution of India to conduct and regulate elections in the country. Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, di ...

. It will link the Elector's Photo Identity Card (EPIC) with the Aadhaar number of the registered voter. It aims to create an error-free voter identification system in India, especially by removing duplications. The project was launched on 3 March 2015. On 11 August 2015, the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

passed an interim order regarding the Aadhaar project, which caused the NERPAP to be put on hold.

Overview

Under the project, the voters can submit their Aadhar and EPIC number by

SMS Short Message/Messaging Service, commonly abbreviated as SMS, is a text messaging service component of most telephone, Internet and mobile device systems. It uses standardized communication protocols that let mobile devices exchange short text ...

, email, mobile application and website. 1950 call centers have been set up to accept submissions via phone calls. The voters can also submit their documents at designated registration camps and offices. Voters with multiple entries in the databases can voluntarily disclose it. Voters will be able to apply for corrections in their EPIC entries by submitting supporting documents. The project also aims to improve photograph quality on EPIC entries by borrowing the photographs of voters from the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) database. The project expects to weed out duplicate, fake and ineligible voters, and voters who have shifted to other regions from the databases. The projects will also acquire mobile numbers and emails of voters to send them poll related notifications. According to the data provided by UIDAI to the Election Commission, 50,00,00,000 of the country's 85,00,00,000 voters are currently registered with the UIDAI. The UIDAI is expected to complete the registration of all voters in a few months.

Criticism

On 20 May 2015, CPI(M) leader, Sitaram Yechury, wrote to the Chief Election Commissioner of India,

Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi Syed Nasim Ahmad Zaidi served as 20th Chief Election Commissioner of India. He is a retired I.A.S. officer of 1976 batch from the Uttar Pradesh cadre. Education Zaidi possesses a master's degree in Public Administration from Kennedy School of G ...

, expressing concerns about the project. He said the data collected by linking the EPICs with Aadhaars may result in misuse such as discriminating against a section of citizens. He also asked Zaidi to clarify that possession of an Aadhaar was not mandatory for voting and that linking with Aadhaar was voluntary. He said that the

sent to voters made it seem like it was mandatory. With the order of the

collection of Aadhaar number and linking it with the electoral role has been suspended with Delhi first to suspend collection of the data.

References

{{reflist Election Commission of India 2015 in India Electoral reform in India

Overview

Criticism

See also

References