The Panchayat Raj department has embarked upon simplifying the processes for issuance of birth and death certificates online.
The department has decided to digitise births and deaths registered in different gram panchayats and upload them online so that they can be downloaded with a click of the mouse at any point of time.
Instructions have accordingly been issued to district panchayat officers and mandal level officers to digitise the data at the gram panchayat level and upload the information on to the e-panchayat portal.
“The exercise has been taken up as part of efforts to improve delivery of services to people. Officials have been asked to upload the information incorporated in the birth registers that are being maintained at the gram panchayat level since the formation of the State on June 2, 2014,” a senior official told The Hindu.
Registration of births and deaths is being done under the Registration of Birth and Death Act, 1969, and registration of this vital event, either birth or death, has to be done at the place of its occurrence. Local bodies are authorised to issue birth or death certificates at their level and these certificates are presently being generated through Mee Seva centres. But the system by and large is confined to urban areas.
The existing system is reportedly prompting manual interface at some point or the other in the issuance of certificates. “We want to avoid this and hence, the digitisation of records,” the official said. The department has set November 9 as the tentative deadline for uploading available information in the e-panchayat portal to ensure that work picks up pace. “Work will not progress with the desired speed unless a deadline is set for the officials,” another official connected with the process said.
The cut-off date of June 2, 2014, could be extended further based on the functioning of the system and feedback from people. “Our aim is to ensure that residents of the State can obtain these certificates irrespective of the year of occurrence of the event. But this will take some more time to materialise,” the official said.
