The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Process of obtaining birth and death certificates made easy

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Sunday, Jun 28, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Process of obtaining birth and death certificates made easy

Shastry V. Mallady

They can be had from Primary Health Centres in rural areas

MADURAI: The process of obtaining birth and death certificates has been simplified for the convenience of people in the rural areas of the State. Soon, all primary health centres (PHCs) will start issuing the certificates.

Health Department sources here told The Hindu on Saturday that they had received a communication from the Directorate of Public Health to make arrangements for issuing the birth certificate in the PHC where the child was born and complete the registration formalities.

According to officials, the facility was meant for the convenience of people in villages and small towns, who had to go to the village administrative officer or the taluk office to register and get the certificate.

“Since the number of deliveries done in PHCs is increasing every year, the government wants to ensure that there is cent per cent registration of births. So Director of Public Health S. Elango convened a meeting of health officials from districts for the implementation of this facility,” A. Palanichamy, Deputy Director of Health Services, Madurai district, said.

The Directorate’s communication stated that all the 1,500-odd PHCs in the State had been declared additional birth and death registration units.

The Health Inspector in each PHC would look after the birth and death registration work. He would be given the powers to sign and issue certificate. “People need no longer spend time to obtain the certificate. Villagers can just go to their PHC and get it done,” an official said. “This is a people-friendly measure announced in the Assembly when the demand for grants for the Health Department came up a few days ago.” According to Dr. Palanichamy, there would be a separate registration centre in every PHC. The Directorate had instructed the Deputy Directors of Health Services in districts to provide a separate room/furniture for this new facility.

“We found that many people in villages were not properly registering birth and death as they had to go elsewhere and spend time on the formalities. So, it has now been made easy,” the Deputy Director added.

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