The Hindu : MCD carves a niche in online registration of births, deaths

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 06, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

MCD carves a niche in online registration of births, deaths

By Lalit K. Jha

NEW DELHI, MARCH 5. Want to know who all were born in the Capital on February 29 or January 26 this year? Or for that matter any baby born on October 2, 2003, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi!

Well all you need to do is click on to the website of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi - http://www.mcdonline.gov.in - and register yourself. At this dynamic website, one can search the names and addresses of children born on a particular day in any of the 12 Zones of the MCD. Though there are three civic bodies in the Capital, the MCD caters to the need of about 94 per cent of Delhi population. It also registers more than 97 per cent of the city's deaths and births.

On the website, one can get even the minutest details about the infant and parents, which might even be considered as an infringement of their privacy. Also available are the residential address, age, educational qualification and occupation of their parents, age of mother at the time of marriage and pregnancy, duration of mother's pregnancy, weight of the child at birth, place where delivery took place and the nature of delivery.

"This is probably the first time that such detailed information has been made available on the web. Anyone who is registered at the website can get the information," officials of the civic body said.

Because of this online registration of deaths and births and search facilities being made available to the netizens of the Capital, the MCD was recently adjudicate "Outstanding" at the 3rd Millennium Plus Cities of India conference on the "Registration of Births and Deaths" organised by the Registrar General of India at Surat.

Impressed by the software and people-friendly system developed by the MCD, the RGI, officials in the civic body said, has recommended other municipalities of the country to replicate the Delhi model of on-line registration of deaths and births.

"This is the only software, which matches the requirements of the national identity card," said R.C. Patnaik, the officer of special duty with the MCD Medical Health Officer, who represented the civic body at the conference and came back with a trophy.

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