Birth & death registration: Denizens give cold shoulder to BMC portal

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Bhubaneswar: The web portal for registration on death and birth certificate has met with a cold shoulder from the denizens of the Capital City as lack of awareness and enthusiasm is still resulting in large queues at the city health office.
Launched in 2010 by the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) under its E-governance the web portal ‘www.ulbodisha.gov.in’ aimed at reducing the hassle for registration at the offices and eliminating the third party involvement for the process in more than 30 municipalities in the state.
However, the initiative has been given a wide berth by the people who have reportedly attributed ignorance for their disinterest. According to sources, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) registers about 200 birth and 70 death certificates each day, however, the online portal receives only 10-20 applications.
“I once tried to apply for my mother’s death certificate on the online portal but couldn’t understand the steps required in it. It was all too complicated and eventually I went to the health office,” complained Bishnupriya Hota a resident at Nayapalli.
Detailing about the steps involved in registration, City Health Officer Ramchandra Rout explained that the process involves- visiting the portal, clicking on birth and death certificate panel, choosing district, and eventually selecting online mode of delivery after uploading the necessary documents.
“We did carry out awareness programmes by giving advertisement on almost all forms of media but to no avail. Steps involved in the online registration can sometimes be overwhelming for the general public especially uploading document but for that we have set up help desks in the office for encouraging people to visit the portal,” said Rout.
However, sources in the city health office said that people at large are unaware of any such portal and have reservations on the authenticity of the certificate. This could be verified from the fact that mere 3,000 registrations have been made online in past two years as compared to about 24,000 offline.
Responding to this Rout said that the certificates provided is completely genuine and is accepted in all official procedures. People should freely register online as it not only saves them from the rigmarole and regular visits to the office but also eliminates touts and middlemen that exploit public’s inconvenience for personal gains.
“If we get only 100 applications online daily, it would not only reduce the burden on the general public, but also on us. This can even reduce a lot of paperwork and make the process more environment-friendly,” Rout added.