Around 2.5 lakh Citizenship (Amendment) Act applications pending in West Bengal’s Nadia and North 24 Parganas districts will be processed for eligible applicants by December 31, Suvendu Adhikari said on Friday. He said applicants who migrated to India before December 31, 2014, and meet the eligibility requirements would receive citizenship certificates by the year-end.
Adhikari made the announcement while addressing a Kali Puja inauguration programme organised by a local club at Aranghata in Nadia. His statement specifically referred to applications pending in Nadia and North 24 Parganas, two districts where the issue has become a significant administrative concern because of the number of applicants involved.
According to the report, the pending applications cover people seeking citizenship under the CAA. The law provides a framework for eligible members of specified religious communities from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered India on or before December 31, 2014. The supplied report does not provide a breakdown of the 2.5 lakh applications by district, community, application stage or verification status.
Adhikari said citizenship certificates would be issued to all eligible applicants by December 31. The statement establishes a year-end target, but the report does not detail the administrative process that will be used to clear the backlog, the number of officials assigned to the work or whether applicants will need to submit additional documents.
The scale of the pending applications means that the deadline will depend on the processing of individual applications and the verification of eligibility. The report does not state how many applications have already been examined, how many have been approved or whether any applications have been rejected. It also does not cite a government notification or provide a district-level schedule for certificate distribution.
The announcement comes as citizenship documentation remains a major governance issue for applicants in the affected districts. For residents, the certificate process determines whether an application moves from submission to formal recognition under the law. The immediate administrative question is therefore how the stated deadline will be translated into application scrutiny, approvals and the delivery of certificates.
Adhikari also announced a separate plan to spend Rs 1,000 crore over the next two years on the renovation and restoration of old maths and temples under a project named the ‘Tirthakshetra Circuit’. The report did not provide details of the funding source, implementing agency, list of sites or project-wise allocations. The citizenship certificate deadline and the restoration programme were announced at the same public event.
