New Delhi: The Home Ministry on Friday constituted two more empowered committees for Bengal for faster processing of citizenship requests received under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. With this, the number of powerful committees working in the state has increased to four.

The CAA provides for granting citizenship to immigrants belonging to six minority religions – Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, Jain and Parsi – from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who entered India before December 31, 2014 due to fear of religious persecution. Home country. In a gazette notification issued on Monday, the MHA said that two additional empowered committees of West Bengal – to take the final decision on citizenship applications forwarded by the district level committees after verification of documents – 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. Original Empowered Committee – set up and chaired by a notification issued by the Ministry in March 2024. The Director, Bengal Census Operations – shall continue to exist.

With three additional empowered committees now sharing work with the parent committee, the high volume of applications under the CAA will be dealt with more efficiently and processing time will be reduced, central government sources told TOI. There are a large number of Hindu immigrants to Bengal, such as people belonging to the Matua community.

The BJP is reaching out to the Matuas to strengthen its electoral prospects ahead of the assembly elections in West Bengal. The new empowered committees on CAA notified on March 11, 2024 allow certain members of the original committee – such as jurisdictional Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) and State Informatics Officer – to nominate an officer below the rank of Under Secretary. Other members such as an officer of the Assistant Intelligence Bureau and a Post Master General or a postal officer nominated by him will remain the same.

The new panel will include a representative from the office of the Principal Secretary (Home) or Additional Chief Secretary (Home) of Bengal and a representative of the Divisional Railway Manager having jurisdiction as invitee members.