The Hindu                      23.07.2012

Corporation to issue birth and death certificates online soon

About 70 per cent of work on uploading data has been completed

Residents running from pillar to post to get birth or death certificates will soon heave a sigh of relief as they will be able to download the certificates from the City Municipal Corporation’s website free of cost soon.

Till now the birth and death certificates were issued only at the four zonal offices of the corporation at Suramangalam, Hasthampatti, Kondalampatti and at Ammapet or only at the corporation main office.

Currently around 100 birth and death certificates are issued at the civic body main office everyday, while 250 certificates are issued at the four zones.

For the issue of certificates, the civic body charges a fee of Rs. 5 for the first copy and Rs. 7 for the second copy.

Certificates are also delivered to the applicant’s home within two days of submitting the application.

Uploading the data of more than seven lakh birth and death events from 1981 to 2011 is being carried out with around 70 per cent of the work been completed till date.

Uploading of the remaining data is expected to take another two months time as test run would be carried out before enabling the option for the public to download the certificates.

For issue of birth certificates, hospitals will submit details about time of baby birth, mother’s name and other details through online, which will be validated by a health officer and uploaded in the website.

People can enter the details and download the certificates and take a printout from any computer.

One has to obtain certificate of burial or cremation from the divisional sanitary inspector for natural death and later would be able to download the death certificates.

In case of death due to accidents, first information report (FIR) copy, autopsy report from the hospital should be submitted to the civic body and upon verification, the death certificates can be downloaded.

Carried out as part of e-governance project, the initiative being implemented is expected to reduce public complaints regarding late issue of certificates, alleged corruption practices and prevent malpractices.

Corporation Commissioner M. Ashokan said that this would bring in more efficiency and transparency in the functioning of the civic body besides curbing the activities of touts.