The BJP-led Tripura government has decided to launch the exercise to update the National Population Register in the state from May amid nationwide protests against the NPR, National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The government plans to deploy 11,000 officials, including 9,062 enumerators, 1,556 supervisors, nine principal census officers and 81 charge officers for the exercise, an official said on Saturday.

“From May 16 till June 29, we will collect the data for the NPR as part of the census operations. We shall conduct house listing and housing census in this phase. The second phase, to be launched next year, will comprise real census operation,” director of census operations P.K. Chakraborty said.

In India, the census data will be collected in two phases. The first will start in April and will continue till September.

For collecting data for NPR, the Registrar-General of India has given permission to use mobile app and paper survey and online-based self-enumeration in the second phase.

“The Tripura State Level Census Coordination Committee, headed by chief secretary Manoj Kumar, has decided to use mobile app only. The data for the NPR could be finalised faster through the mobile app operation and in case of poor Internet connectivity in hilly and bordering areas, the enumerators could enter the data and later upload it,” the official said. The NPR is a register of “usual residents” of the country. It is being prepared under provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003. A “usual resident” is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months or more.

The objective of the NPR is to create a comprehensive identity database of every usual resident in the country.

The Opposition parties, including the CPM and the Congress, are against this exercise as they alleged that by implementing NRC and NPR the BJP would divide the country based on religion. However, the BJP government, which has described NPR as the first step towards a nationwide NRC, claimed that there is no link between the two.

The official said a series of decisions have been taken to carry out the NPR exercise, starting from training and capacity building for personnel and work allotment targets.

A rally of Youth Congress supporters, on the other hand, raised “azadi” slogans while protesting against CAA, NPR and NRC at Manu in Dhalai district, 111km from here.

Speaking at rally, Indian Youth Congress president Srinivas B.V. said Prime Minster Narendra Modi was trying to destroy the Constitution.