The Pushkar Singh Dhami government in Uttarakhand has a strong view of irregularities emerging in the state’s Family Registers leading to the fear of demographic changes in rural areas. Chief Minister Dhami asked the district magistrates to investigate addition of non-qualified new names based on fake documents in Family Registers.
In a high-level meeting of senior officials on Saturday, the chief minister ordered a statewide investigation of the family register, considered a major document for domicile certification of the state’s natives. He said additional names of non-natives and those coming from outside must not be entertained by the elected representatives or officials concerned.
“Copies of family registers in all districts must be immediately taken into custody by respective district magistrates to prevent possibility of tampering with the records. Subsequently, an exhaustive probe of every family register will be carried out by Chief Development Officers or Additional District Magistrates (ADMs) for rural and urban areas respectively” Dhami directed the officials.
The chief minister made it clear that the probe will cover the period from 2003 to the present in order to detect potential irregularities that occurred in past years. He asked the officials to initiate strict departmental and legal action against individuals who have registered names based on forged or fake documents.
Family registers in the Uttarakhand are important documents to keep records of the families living in a particular rural and urban areas of the state. Registers for rural population are maintained by the respctive panchayats under Panchayati Raj (Maintenance of Family Registers) Rules, 1970.
According to these rules, it is mandatory for every family residing in rural areas to be recorded in the Family Register. It also has provisions for the rectification of current entries and the process of adding new names.
The Dhami government has now decided to be strict in adding new names in the light of complaints that a large number of names not seen in the panchayat areas were also added in Family Registers in various parts of the state. This, according to Dhami, has given rise to the fear of change in demography in panchayats of hill areas. He told the officials and DMs that his government intends to make stricter and more transparent procedures of entering names in Family Registers.
Uttarakhand chief minister made it clear that the authority to register names in the Family Register rests only with the Assistant Development Officers while the right to appeal is vested with Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDMs).