Ministry of Interior. (file photo)
NEW DELHI: The Union Home Ministry on Friday constituted a second empowered committee for West Bengal to expedite the processing of citizenship applications received under the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA). The Citizenship Act provides for granting citizenship to immigrants from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh belonging to six minority sects – Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi – who entered India before December 31, 2014, for fear of religious persecution in their countries of origin. In a gazette notification issued on Friday, the Home Ministry said that the new empowered committee in West Bengal — which takes final call on citizenship applications submitted by the district-level committee after verification of documents — will be headed by the Deputy Registrar General, Directorate of Census Operations in the state. The original empowered committee — constituted as per the notification issued by the MHA in March 2024 and headed by the West Bengal Director of Census Operations — will remain in place. The new empowered committee has been set up as the volume of applications under the CAA has increased in the state, sources in the central government told TOI. Sharing work is expected to compress processing time. West Bengal has a large number of Hindu migrants, such as those belonging to the Matua community.
The BJP has been making significant outreach to them to boost its electoral prospects in the state. The new Empowered Committee on the CAO allows certain members of the Empowered Committee as notified on 11 March 2024 – such as the Regional Aliens Registration Officer and the State Information Officer – to nominate an employee each, not below the rank of Undersecretary. Other members such as Sub-Intelligence Bureau Officer and Postmaster General or Postal Officer nominated by him remain unchanged. Like the original empowered committee, the new committee shall include a representative of the office of West Bengal Chief Secretary (Home) or Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and a representative of the Judicial District Railway Manager as invitees.
