The demography panel set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has launched a portal to allow government bodies, members of the public, NGOs, and even “international organisations” to submit their input on “frequent demographic changes in the country,” preferably post-2011.
It said that these changes are “not attributable to normal fertility or mortality trends but are instead emerging due to external abnormal factors, including illegal immigration, irregular population mobility, and administrative laxity.
The portal said that while these changes are most visibly concentrated in border districts, their impact has extended to affect urban centres, industrial corridors, tribal regions, and other socially and economically sensitive areas, severely impacting public service delivery, local governance, resource distribution, and social cohesion. The MHA said that the inputs will help the panel to analyse and identify the causes of demographic changes and to recommend a well-organised and permanent operational system for the “legal, fair, and time bound identification, detention, and deportation of illegal immigrants residing in the country.”
The respondents have been divided into three categories: Central government Ministries, departments, and organisations; State governments and Union Territory administrations; civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations, academic institutions, industry and business associations, international organisations, and think tanks; and individual citizens, public representatives, students, and others.
