The Centre has reached out to the governments in Bengal and Kerala in an attempt to allay “apprehensions and misgivings” over the National Population Register (NPR), sources in the home ministry said on Thursday.

The non-BJP states view the NPR as a prelude to the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC).

“Bengal and Kerala have formally informed the home ministry that they will not implement the NPR. This is why we recently wrote to the two state governments inviting them to hold discussions with top ministry officials for allaying apprehensions and misgivings over the countrywide exercise. The basic objective of the outreach is to clarify their misunderstanding and address the concerns over the NPR,” a senior home ministry official told The Telegraph.

The Centre is yet to get any response from the governments in Bengal and Kerala. “We are still awaiting a reply,” the official said.

The NPR exercise has run into controversy after the Centre clubbed it with the decadal census. Questions introduced by the Narendra Modi government on the date and place of birth of parents, besides Aadhaar details, have caused anxiety since the NPR is the mother data for the controversial NRC.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Calcutta. Telegraph file picture

Fears have been expressed that a nationwide NRC could result in a large number of people being declared “doubtful citizens” because of their inability to provide the necessary information.

Union home minister Amit Shah has said that an NRC would be conducted across the nation. With only an executive order required to prepare the NRC, the fear is that the Centre can do so once the NPR has been prepared.

“There is some confusion over the NPR and we want to make it clear that the additional information being sought this time for the NPR is not mandatory and people would not be required to provide any documentation,” the ministry official said.

Asked why the questions on the parents’ place of birth — which were not asked in the 2010 NPR — have been included this time, he dodged the question and said: “People are required to inform this orally and they don’t need to provide any documents to support it.”

Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had said there was no question of allowing work to resume on the NPR in the state.

The Kerala government has said it will not implement the NPR and the NRC but will co-operate with the census operations. It has also demanded that the two questions — date of birth of the respondents and details of their parents — be excluded from the census questionnaire.

The first NPR — conducted in 2010 — was carried out along with the house-listing phase of the previous decadal census but this time concerns have arisen in the wake of the passage of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.