Birth, death certificates already digitised in Amritsar

Charanjit Singh Teja

Amritsar, September 15

Though the Central Government issued a notification to register all the reported births and deaths digitally from October 1, the Municipal Corporation Amritsar has already been registering births and deaths digitally for the last few years. Officials in the CM’s office stated that the process was adopted around five years back.

The applicant files his papers for birth and death certification at the Suvidha Centre. All the required documents are accepted in the digital form. Then the Suvidha Centre sends the applications to the birth and death registration branch of the MC for processing. After verification, the MC issues the digitally signed birth or death certificate which also has a QR code. The beneficiary can get a copy of the digitally signed certificate from Punjab Government’s e-sewa portal anywhere and anytime.

The state government had introduced the digitisation of several services through e-sewa in 2011. It took time to digitise all the data and shift the manual processing of applications to digital mode. Now, the digitisation of the delivery of as many as 283 services, including caste, birth and death certificates, residence certificate, old age pension, marriage services, arms renewal, general caste certificate, non-encumbrance certificate, backward area certificate and others has been done.

It is worth mentioning here that the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023 which was passed by Parliament during the Monsoon Session this year will come into force from October 1. The Act allows the use of birth certificate as a single document for admission to an educational institution, issuance of a driving licence, preparation of voter’s list, Aadhaar number, and registration of marriage or appointment to a government job.

Digital process

• Applicant files his papers for birth/death certification at Suvidha Centre.
• All the required documents are accepted in digital form.
• Suvidha Centre sends applications to the birth & death registration branch of MC for processing
• After verification, the MC issues digitally signed birth or death certificate which also has QR code.
• Beneficiary can get a copy of digitally signed certificate from e-sewa portal anywhere, anytime.