After a bureaucrat named Prateek Hajela was appointed the State Coordinator in October 2013, the NRC exercise that is being monitored by the Supreme Court got underway. In August of 2019, the final draught of the list of citizens was made public. Out of a total of 3.3 crore applicants, there were 19.06 lakh people who were not included on the list.
Due to a lack of proper planning, according to the CAG report covering the period ending March 31, 2020 that was presented to the 126-member Assam assembly on December 24, it was reported that 215 software utilities were added in a haphazard manner to the core software that was used for the updating exercise.
"These were done without following the due process of either software development or selection of vendors through eligibility assessment following a national tendering," the report said, noting that highly secure and reliable software was required for such an exercise because of the nature of the task at hand.
Because the software and utilities used by the NRC for data capture and correction were developed in a haphazard manner, there was a possibility that the data could have been altered without any trace of the alteration being left behind. The report from the CAG stated that as a result, the goal that was intended to be met, which was to prepare a valid and error-free NRC, was not met.
According to the findings of the report, the total cost of the project for the NRC increased from 288.18 crore to 1,602.66 crore as a direct result of the length of time it took to carry out the activity.
