The Hindu             11.02.2014

Getting a birth or death certificate made simpler

A child’s birth certificate will now be issued at the hospital itself, and parents can collect it before clearing the hospital bills.

Similarly, death certificates too will reach relatives of the deceased within three days.

While the new system of issuing birth and death certificates has been in force since February 1, the e-transfer of data from the hospitals to the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for quick issuance of the certificates was officially launched here on Monday.

BBMP’s Joint Director (Statistics) D. Shankarappa told presspersons here that the civic body had introduced this system in all the 1,480 private medical hospitals and nursing homes, BBMP’s six referral hospitals and 22 maternity homes, and five government hospitals.

“With the new system, the certificates can be issued at the hospital itself. Earlier, it used to take a week and in some cases, even up to a month. With this, the BBMP has become the first corporation in the country to have such a unique system,” he said.

NIC software

Mr. Shankarappa said the software for the system had been developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).

He explained that all hospitals have been given a unique user identity and password. The authorised hospital officials have to log in and register the event (either birth or death).

Several measures have been put in place to ensure that there is no misuse. He said each certificate would be pre-printed with the emblems of the Union and State governments, as well as the BBMP emblem as watermark. Apart from a serial number, it would also have a 24-digit security code and a three-dimensional high-security hologram.

Corrections

Mr. Shankarappa said the BBMP had set up 27 registration centres across the city. Citizens could approach these centres or the zonal offices for inclusion of name, correction or delayed registration.

Copies of birth and death certificates would also be available at around 90 BangaloreOne centres and BBMP’s citizen service centres.

He clarified that when someone dies at home, the relatives would have to produce a doctor’s certificate and the receipt from the crematorium or burial ground to apply for a death certificate.

BBMP Commissioner M. Lakshminarayana said that with the new system, inconvenience caused to the citizens would be minimised.

The Indian Express             03.02.2014 

PMC civic services set to go online from April 1

If all goes as planned by the civic administration, residents of the city will soon be able to track their applications related to grievances and other files moved in the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) online from April 1.

As part of its e-governance project, the PMC has decided to bring all the software used in various civic departments on one platform so that they can be linked. “Many civic departments are computerised, but the software are on different platforms, because of which they are not interconnected. The PMC is working on bringing all computerised systems on one software platform,” said Abhishek Krishna, Additional Municipal Commissioner.

The recently appointed agency has converted most of the software used by civic departments keeping in mind the plan to establish a single computerised platform. “There are certain difficult systems like the one used in birth and death registeration but the agency has been able to include it in the new system,” he said, adding that the agency would also design software for other civic services that are yet to be computerised.

“The focus would be on developing a file tracking system and grievance system for bringing transparency and increasing accountability. We want it to be launched on April 1,” said Krishna.

He added that a total of 16 administrative services would go online from the next financial year and the process of adding the remaining would continue.

The new e-governance plan includes computerisation of legal, urban community, central stores, disaster management, anti-encroachment and health by bringing the administrative process on the electronic system for day-to-day work.
As a mandatory reform for the civic bodies reaping the benefits of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), the PMC had to implement the e-governance project to improve the delivery of its civic services.

The issuing of licences, certificates and permissions involves communication with citizens and the system required transparency and accountability, Krishna said, adding that the civic body aimed to make the system easily accessible to the public.

The computerised system for disaster management would involve linking the health, fire safety, anti-encroachment and building control departments to be interconnected for swift response to any disaster situation. Meanwhile, the civic body that has installed audio-visual system in the renovated general body meeting hall is now connecting the system with the television sets at the offices of each civic office-bearer and head of the department so that the proceedings can be watched and tracked by them sitting in their respective offices.

“As of now, heads of all civic departments have to attend the general body meeting to respond to queries and issues raised by elected representatives. They have to sit till the end of the meeting even if there is no issue of their respective department being raised. This keeps them unavailable for any other work, including public communication. The live telecast of the meeting on their TV sets in their office will help them rush to the meeting hall only if they are required,” said a civic officer.