RBD Act 1969 to link personal data: Nov 17 last date for public comments on the draft bill

November 17 is the last date to send comments to the Ministry of Home Affairs on the draft bill to amend the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969. The proposed amendments say that the government may use the database to update the population register, electoral register, aadhaar data, ration card, passport and driving licence databases and link them to birth and death registries in the country.

The central government has proposed amendments that will enable it to "maintain the database of registered birth and deaths at the national level".

Registration of births and deaths in India has been mandatory with the Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD), Act 1969. 

"The Registrar General, India shall maintain the database of registered births and deaths at the national level, that may be used, with the approval of Central Government, to update Population Register prepared under the Passport Database of the Passport Act; and Driving Licence database under Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 and other databases at national level subject to provison of Section 17 (1) of RBD Act, 1969, the Aadhar data prepared under Aadhaar Act, 2016, and the Ration Card database prepared under National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA)," draft bill says. 

It proposes that the Chief Registrar (appointed by the states) would maintain a unified database at the state level and integrate it with the data at the "national level," maintained by the Registrar General of India (RGI). 

The amendments imply that the centre will be a parallel repository oMotor Vehicles (Amendment) Actf data. Presently, the state's local registrar does the registration of births and deaths.

Another proposed change is the appointment of "Special Sub-Registrars, in the event of disaster, giving him/her any or all of his powers and duties for on-the-spot registration of deaths.

The proposed amendments now specify that in case of non-institutional adoption, the adoptive parents will have to provide relevant information, which was previously done by the adoption agencies, and in the cases of a child born to a single parent or unwed mother from her womb, the parent or the nearest relative is supposed to do the task.