This Article is From Aug 02, 2015

New Delhi Municipal Council to Digitise Birth, Death Records Dating From 1917 to 1985

New Delhi Municipal Council to Digitise Birth, Death Records Dating From 1917 to 1985

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New Delhi: Residents in the areas under New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will no longer have to struggle to get birth and death certificates of their family members dating back to 1917, with the civic body deciding to digitise such records.

With hard copies of birth and death records as old as of 1917 being in soiled and shabby condition, the NDMC is in process of digitisng the records upto 1985.

The civic body had earlier also carried out digitisation of birth and death certificates of 1982-2008 and 2008 to the current period. However records as old as 1917 had not been touched before.

"It is required to preserve the certificates in the original format. Even though we had carried out digitisation of recent records, this period was not touched before. We regularly have people coming in with requests for copies of certificates of this period," a senior NDMC official said.

"The records are in poor condition now. The hard copies will now be scanned and the records then digitised. The data can be viewed online or the families can collect print-outs from the centres," she added.

The computerisation plan would facilitate faster issuance of these certificates by doing away with manual sifting of records and instead provide to citizens printouts of certificates on pre-written stationery dually stamped and countersigned by the Registrar.

While the move will help the NDMC employees who will not have to spend time looking for old documents, it will also ensure no data is lost.

The NDMC has already awarded the tender to a software company and work on the project will start soon.

"Earlier, the procedure to obtain the certificate was a tedious one. One had to apply for it, then manual searching of records was done and then the applicants were intimated to come and collect it. So roughly people had to wait for around 15 days to a month to obtain the certificate.

"But now they can simply log on to the NDMC website and check the availability status of their certificates and come and collect it from the Palika Suvidha Kendras and the Registrar's Office," the official said.
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