Glitches in portal hit issuance of birth and death certificates

• The Union government’s centralised portal, Civil Registration System (CRS) is facing glitches since the past four months

Highlights:

• The Civil Registration System (CRS) is to register births and deaths is facing glitches since the past four months.
• The malfunction has led to delays in issuance of birth and death registration certificates.
• According to the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act enacted in 2023, all reported births and deaths in the country occurring from October 1, 2023 are to be digitally registered through the Centre’s portal.
• The digital birth certificates will be a single document to prove the date of birth for various services such as admission to educational institutions, government jobs, marriage registration among others.
• The centralised database will also update the National Population Register (NPR), ration cards, property registration and electoral rolls.
• The NPR, first collected in 2010 and updated in 2015 through door-to-door enumeration, already has a database of 119 crore residents.
• The NPR is the first step to the creation of the National Register of Citizens (NPR), as per the Citizenship Act.
• So far, 23 States and six union territories have migrated to the new portal.
• States such as Tamil Nadu which have their own portals send the data compulsorily to the Centre in real-time as mandated by the 2023 amendment.
• A district official in Chhattisgarh said ever since the State started using the new portal in March this year there “appears to be teething problems” with the system.
• The system often freezes up for hours while registering a birth or death and sometimes it might even take a day for the system to resume working
• The Chief Registrar of Births and Deaths is the implementing authority and the registration is done by the local registrars appointed by the State governments.
• In respect of birth or death that occurred in a hospital or a health centre, the medical officers are responsible for reporting the event to the registrar.

Prelims Takeaway

• CRS