All reported births, deaths to be digitally registered from October 1

All reported births, deaths to be digitally registered from October 1

Subject: Polity

Section: Msc

Context:

• All reported births and deaths in the country will be digitally registered on the Centre’s portal from October 1, according to a government notification.

Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023:

• A single document (digital birth certificate) is to be used for admission to educational institutions, applications for driving license, government jobs, passports or Aadhaar, voter enrolment, and registration of marriage, among others.
• The power is conferred to the central government by subsection (2) of Section 1 of the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023.
• Notification released by: Registrar-General and Census Commissioner, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan.

Key features of the act:

• The Act grants authority to the Registrar General of India to oversee a national registry of births and deaths.State-appointed Chief Registrars and Registrars will be obligated to contribute data to this national database, while Chief Registrars maintain similar databases at the state level.
  • Earlier, there was a requirement for certain persons to report births and deaths to the Registrar.
• The rule also applied to cases of births in a jail, a hotel or lodge. Herein, the jailor and the hotel manager need to provide all the relevant information.
• Under the new Act, the list has been further expanded and will now include  adoptive parents for non-institutional adoption, biological parents for births through surrogacy, and the parent in case of birth of a child to a single parent or unwed mother.
• The new legislation allows sharing of the national database with authorized authorities like population registers, electoral rolls, and others, subject to central government approval. Similarly, state databases can be shared with state-approved authorities.
• As per the Act, any person aggrieved by any action or order of the Registrar or District Registrar may appeal to the District Registrar or Chief Registrar, respectively. Such an appeal must be made within 30 days from receipt of such action or order. The District Registrar or Chief Registrar must give their decision within 90 days from the date of appeal.
• It will be compulsory for States to register births and deaths on the Centre’s Civil Registration System (CRS) portal and share data with the RGI which functions under the Union Home Ministry.
• The Act authorizes the government to “collect Aadhaar numbers of parents and informants, if available, in case of birth registration.” Presently, either parent voluntarily provides an Aadhaar number for a newborn’s birth certificate generated through the CRS.

National Population Register (NPR):

• The centralized database will also update the National Population Register (NPR), ration cards, property registration and electoral rolls.
• NPR, first collected in 2010 and updated in 2015 through door-to-door enumeration, already has a database of 119 crore residents.
• NPR is the first step to the creation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), as per the Citizenship Act.