Many people are facing serious difficulties in getting their birth certificates across the country due to the slow and complicated delivery process of the important document, according to media reports.
The birth registration law was enacted in 2004 and came into force in 2006. Birth registration certificate is mandatory for various important activities including passport issue, marriage registration, admission in educational institutions, obtaining driving license and land registration. In the beginning handwritten certificates were given. Then at the end of 2010 an initiative was taken to digitalise it. At that time the government also provided a separate allocation for computer training to the registrars concerned.
But not all the information was digitised at that time, especially of the city corporations and densely populated areas. The new application system has been designed in a way that it will not accept any birth registration number which is less than 17 digits. The birth register portal now logs around one lakh applications every day. So, we want to pose a question why the government has not taken any step to reduce the people’s sufferings in obtaining birth certificates yet.
there are still many flaws in the way
people get birth registration
after the automation of the
system
On the other hand, millions of people who had previously obtained birth registration certificates now need to be re-registered online as their previous registrations have disappeared. The birth registration of these individuals has not been updated online and it will no longer be possible to transfer old data to the new server. Authorities concerned are also struggling to cope with the large number of online birth registrations of a large number of people. It is clear that there are still many flaws in the way people get birth registration after the automation of the system.
So, the authorities concerned will have to identify those flaws. No government official should be exempted if any kind of harassment of service seekers is reported at any level in birth registration. We see birth registration as a very burning issue these days. Even then, if there is a complaint against someone, action should be taken against him or her. In order to fulfil the commitment of good governance and build an ideal society, birth registration has to be administered very seriously. We think we every citizen should also be responsible and inform the concerned government office about the new born baby’s birth date immediately.