Govt hospitals to issue birth and death certificates

To make simpler the grant of birth and death certificates, the Delhi government is authorising its hospitals to issue these certificates.

Moving to decentralise the certification system that is now controlled by the municipal bodies, the government is starting a pilot project of issuing these certificates from two of its largest hospitals. This will later be expanded to other government hospitals.

Over the next month, the Lok Nayak hospital and Guru Teg Bahadur hospital will start issuing these certificates to people who are born there, or die during treatment.

Dr B K Singh, director and chief registrar, births and deaths, said: “We are trying to simplify the process of getting certificates. Until now, citizens had to report births and deaths within 21 days of occurrence to local government authorities. They had to visit corporation offices for registration which would take another seven days. This is a long procedure and takes a long time.”

Now, in case of a birth, the hospital will issue a certificate on the last day of the hospital stay of the mother. In the case of a death at the hospital, a certificate will be issued on the day of the death. The first copies of both will be issued free of cost and hospitals will also upload the registration data online.

Officials expect the first certificates to be issued next month by these hospitals. This system will later be replicated in government and corporation hospitals which have 500 beds

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