Golaghat, Sept. 11: The All Assam Students' Union (AASU) today submitted a memorandum to the deputy commissioners of all the districts of the state urging them to form dedicated teams to look after the update of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

The Supreme Court had asked Assam government to publish the draft copy of the NRC by December 31.

The Golaghat district unit of AASU today submitted the memorandum to Golaghat deputy commissioner Gaurav Bothra urging him to set up a dedicated team of officers to look after the ongoing process of NRC update.

The plea came just a few days after chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal instructed the general administration department to launch the process of collecting data for Aadhaar cards by December 1, a move which has been protested by the Opposition Congress and AASU, who wanted the exercise to start after the publication of the updated NRC.

AASU president Dipanka Kumar Nath had on Tuesday said the final NRC should be the basis for Aadhaar card enrolment.

Assam and Jammu and Kashmir are the only two states without Aadhaar, though the process was started in three districts of Assam as a pilot project but was stopped as the cards could be used as a proof of citizenship by illegal migrants. The Centre had made it clear that Aadhaar neither confers citizenship nor is a proof of citizenship.

"The Supreme Court has already fixed December 31 as the deadline for the publication of draft NRC. It is high time we demand that during these four months the dedicated NRC team will work day and night to ensure not a single name of illegal Bangladeshi migrant is included in the NRC," AASU Golaghat district unit secretary Abhiborton Goswami said.

"The ensuing four months are very critical. Therefore, we have urged the administration to give utmost priority to build a foolproof mechanism, emphasising on accuracy, in the NRC, which is being updated under the supervision of the apex court of the country. We consider it as a vital process to detect illegal migrants," Goswami said.

AASU Golaghat district unit president Mridul Saikia and chief organising secretary Raju Phukan were also present during the submission of the memorandum.

The NRC is being updated in Assam to include the names of those persons (or their descendants) who appear in the NRC 1951 or in any of the electoral rolls up to the midnight of March 24, 1971, or in any one of the other admissible documents issued up to midnight of March 24, 1971, which would prove their presence in Assam or in any part of India on or before March 24, 1971.

The NRC update is important for Assam for the detection and deportation of illegal migrants from Bangladesh since it is on the basis of the updated NRC that illegal migrants who have entered Assam after the midnight of March 24, 1971, can be identified for deportation, according to the Assam Accord.