Guwahati, Aug. 30: It is a case of so near yet so far with the number of application forms submitted for inclusion in the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which is being updated in Assam, falling just short, a day before the extended deadline expires.

Prateek Hajela, state coordinator, NRC, Assam today said forms covering 104 per cent of the households in Assam have been received, which should have been at least 105 to 106 per cent considering the expected increase of households since the 2011 census.

The calculations are based on the number of households in Assam according to the 2011 census, which was 63,94,359. "We expect an increase of five to six per cent households since the 2011 census," Hajela told The Telegraph.

However, there are 11 districts, which have so far recorded over 106 per cent form submission, with Nalbari the highest at 115.29 per cent. There are nine districts that have recorded less than 100 per cent.

The Supreme Court had set July 31 as the deadline for submission of NRC application forms but in an order on July 21 it allowed the state coordinator to modify the dates as required while leaving the date for the publication of the final NRC - on or before January 1, 2016 - untouched.

Hajela said while all should have submitted their forms and that enough opportunity was given, there was no need now to extend the deadline yet again to try and accommodate those who have not.

He, however, said an opportunity to get enrolled would come again when claims and objections are entertained from November 1 to 30 after publication of the draft NRC on November 1.

He said the shortfall in applications could be attributed to some of them not being present in the state during the update process.

Besides, another official said, there would be some who are indigenous and thus supremely confident that they cannot be thought of as anyone else but Indian citizens irrespective of whether their names appear in the NRC.

"Frankly, it does not really matter if a few indigenous people do not make it into the NRC as long as no illegal immigrant gets in and is detected as such once the update is complete," the official said. "That will serve the core purpose of the update well enough."

Hajela said the next phase of work would entail a high volume of digitisation and more time could not be given for submission of forms.

"There will be over six crore documents submitted along with the forms," he said, adding that half of these could be digitised while the rest have to be handled manually.

"There would be a truckload of PAN cards alone," he said by way of example. "We have to reduce this volume digitally to may be about a 10MB file to send to the income tax department for verification," he said.

Given that the NRC update work hereon will increasingly get into the critical stage, Hajela, who is commissioner and secretary, home and political department, has relieved himself of his responsibilities at Dispur for now to pay undivided attention to an exercise that is expected to have long-term implications for Assam insofar as addressing the long-festering foreigners issue is concerned. "I will henceforth be at the state coordinator's office full time," he said.

The apex court while passing its order on July 21 on issues concerning the NRC update had also invoked Article 144 vis-à-vis the exercise. The article calls upon civil and judicial authorities to act in the aid of the Supreme Court, which is supervising the entire work and had set the timeline for its completion. Besides, the court had said necessary action would be taken against anyone found to be hindering the progress of work.

"The Supreme Court has full ownership of the project," an official said.

In fact, the NRC update has seen various organisations and groups coming out to convince the people to extend full cooperation and participate in the exercise to make it a success.