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.
The Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023 that paves way for digital birth certificates which will be a single document to be used for admission to educational institutions, applications for driving licence, government jobs, passports or Aadhaar, voter enrolment, and registration of marriage, among others, will come into effect from October 1.
“In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of Section 1 of the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023 (20 of 2023), the Central government hereby appoints the 1st day of October 2023 as the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force,” said a notification by Registrar-General and Census Commissioner, Mritunjay Kumar Narayan.
National Population Register
The centralised 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 National Register of Citizens (NRC), as per the Citizenship Act.
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 authorises the government to “collect Aadhaar numbers of parents and informant, if available, in case of birth registration.” Presently, either parent voluntarily provides Aadhaar number for a newborn’s birth certificate generated through the CRS. As on March 31, Aadhaar has a saturation of 93% for a projected population of 138.72 crore.
