Birth, death reporting to be automated

Published: 7th May, 2022

Context

Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided to introduce changes in the Civil Registration System (CRS) in India.

About

About MHA’s Plan:

MHA decided to make changes in CRS, since the country has been facing challenges in terms of timelines, efficiency and uniformity leading to delayed and under-coverage of births and deaths in the country.
The plan has been mentioned in MHA’s Annual Report 2020-2021, pointing out that it will be taken up to address the challenges faced by the system in providing prompt service delivery to the public.
The Government of India has decided to introduce transformational changes in the Civil Registration System of the country through an IT-enabled backbone leading to registration of birth and death in real-time basis with minimum human interface.
As per the report, the changes would be in terms of “automating the process delivery points so that the service delivery is time bound, uniform and free from discretion”.
The changes would be sustainable, scalable and independent of the location. The project would be modular in nature consisting of conceptualizing the transformation roadmap, Development of IT application along with its implementation, Capacity Building and Maintenance.

Civil Registration System (CRS)

History: The history of Civil Registration System (CRS) in India dates back to the middle of the 19th century.
In 1886 a Central Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act was promulgated to provide for voluntary registration throughout British India.
Post-independence, the Registration of Births and Death Act (RBD Act) was enacted in 1969 to promote uniformity and comparability in the registration of Births and Deaths across the country and compilation of vital statistics based thereon.
With the enactment of the Act, registration of births, deaths and still births has become mandatory in India.
The Registrar General, India (RGI) at the Central Government level coordinates and unifies the activities of registration throughout the country.
However, implementation of the statute is vested with the State Governments.
Directorate of Census Operations are the sub-ordinate offices of Office of the Registrar General, India and these offices are responsible of monitoring of working of the Act in their concerned State/UT.

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