Forget the tedious rounds at the circle and ward offices of the municipal department to register the new addition to your family. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) launched an initiative to deliver digital birth certificates to new mommies and daddies at their doorstep. To add that humane touch, the digital certificate will be accompanied by a congratulatory note on behalf of the GHMC Mayor and GHMC Commissioners.

The scheme was launched on Monday by the mayor M Majid Hussain in the presence of commissioner M T Krishna Babu at the GHMC head office. The birth certificates will be couriered directly to the designated address free of cost, despatched twice a week. “The package will also contain details of the vaccination schedule for the baby to spread awareness among the parents regarding the doses and schedule for BCG, DPT, Measles, DT, TT and Vitamin doses,” said the Mayor.

The complaints against the delay in obtaining birth certificates from the circle and ward offices within the GHMC limits prompted the measure to expedite the process and provided much-needed relief to the parents. “We have provided user names and passwords to about 100 hospitals in the city. The login can be used for the registration of births and deaths at these hospitals,” said commissioner M T Krishna Babu. The online entry of an event will immediately process the request for the certificate which will then be forwarded to the courier services along with other components of the package for delivery. The hospital authorities will also inform the parents regarding the schedule for vaccinations on their mobile phones as per the contact information supplied.

So far GHMC  has computerised 75 lakh records of birth and death events since 1957, out of which 27 lakh records starting from the year 2000 have been digitized and are readily accessible to the public. “Digitization of the data from 1990 to 1999 is under progress,” added the commissioner.