2 more panels for Bengal to fast-track CAA applications | India News
New Delhi: The Home Ministry on Friday set up two more empowered committees for Bengal to fast-track processing of citizenship requests received under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. This takes the number of functional empowered committees in the state to four.The CAA provides citizenship to people from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh belonging to six of their minority religions – Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and Parsis – who entered India before December 31, 2014, fearing religious persecution in their home countries.In a gazette notification issued on Monday, the MHA said that two additional empowered committees in West Bengal – meant to take the final call on citizenship applications forwarded by district-level committees after document verification – will be headed by the deputy registrar general of the state’s Directorate of Census Operations. This arrangement is in line with the Empowered Committee notified by the Ministry on February 20.The original empowered committee – as per a notification issued by the ministry in March 2024 and headed by the Director of Census Operations, Bengal – will continue to exist. With three additional empowered committees now sharing work with the core committee, central government sources told TOI, the high volume of applications under the CAA will be dealt with more efficiently and processing time will be shortened.Bengal has a significant number of Hindu immigrants, including the Matua community. The BJP is making an outreach to the Matuas to strengthen its electoral prospects ahead of the assembly elections in WB.Newly empowered committees in the CAA notified on March 11, 2024 allow some members of the original committee — such as the jurisdictional Foreign Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) and State Informatics Officer — to nominate an officer not below the rank of Under Secretary. Other members such as officers of the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau and Postal Officers designated by the Post Master General or by him, remain the same.The new panel will include a representative from the office of Chief Secretary (Home) or Additional Chief Secretary (Home) of Bengal and a representative of the jurisdictional Divisional Railway Manager as invited.
