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DCC's Birth Registration in Serious Disarray

One-man-show with single computer in each zone

Shahnaz Parveen
Birth registration and certificate issuance procedure at Dhaka City Corporation is in serious disarray for lack of technical support and shortage of skilled manpower.
The corporation currently has the provision for only one computer and one data entry specialist in each zone for birth registration section, sources at zonal offices said
It has become really difficult with only 10 computers and specialists in the zonal offices of DCC to provide the service to more than one crore population.
Data analysts are burdened with heavy workload. Typists from various sections who are not skilled enough for the job are being employed to help them.
In recent time many schools of the city have made submission of birth certificate mandatory for its students. Parents are rushing to the zonal offices for certificate, which is putting extra pressure on the situation.
There is instruction from the government to issue the certificate within 15 days of application. But in reality, it is taking around 3 months, the parents said.
Nazrul Islam, executive officer, zone 7. said, "Birth registration was very unknown to the general people even one year ago. Now they are concerned about the matter, which is putting extra pressure on us. Our workload has further increased due to huge rush of parents of the school going children."
"We have the capacity to provide around 50 certificates per day. But vve have to issue around 300," he added.
"We have made two categories to deal with the situation, emergency and regular. Those who come to us for emergencies such as school admission or visa they are getting priorities." Nazrul said.
"Too much pressure is increasing the possibility of errors. With the regular pressure vve have to issue duplicate certificate because of this," he mentioned.
On 3 July 2006, the Births and Deaths Registration Act came into force. Under the act, birth registration is compulsory to get 16 basic services for every citizen.
The government has set a target to register births of every citizen (adult and newborn) by December 2008 and made birth registrations free from February
2007 to December 2008.
The city corporations, municipalities. union councils are responsible for birth and death registration in the country while births and deaths of Bangladeshis abroad will be registered by the Bangladesh missions in the respective countries.
DCC launched computerised birth registration programme on February 11, 2007 promising that issuance of certificate will not take more than 15 days.
After the December 2008 deadline, computerised version of Bangla certificates will cost Tk 40. However, for English version the charge will be Tk 100. The corporation will chargeTk 20 for any corrections.
To get a certificate, an adult person must live in the DCC area for at least three years.
Another zonal executive officer on condition of anonymity said, “If we divide one crore people with 10 zones, 1
get 10 lakh. To finish the birth registration by December 2008, 1 have to issue around 3,000 certificates per day."
Meanwhile, Dhaka City Mayor Sadequc Hossain Khoka said, “We are trying to solve the problem. We are discussing about appointing more staff for birth registration."
One of the high officials from the corporation said, "Dialogues will begin with the partners, Unicef and Plan Bangladesh, this week for more financial allocation. We wish to add more workforce and computes. We are also thinking of outsourcing."
A birth certificate serves as a legal age verification document. The Births and Deaths Registration Act requires a birth certificate to be used as proof of age for a number of essential services such as appointment in government, non-government and autonomous bodies, issuance of passport and driving licences, enrolment in voters' list, land registration etc. The practice however is yet to start in all the organisations.
Under the law, parents are required to register the birth of their babies within 45 days. Birth registration will be possible even without the name of the newborn. However, parents must provide the name within 45 days.
There is provision in the law for a Tk. 500 fine if a parent fails to register the birth.
According to a survey conducted by Unicef, around 10 percent birth is registered in Bangladesh. The rest 90 percent of the country’s population remain unregistered. Without the birth certificate it becomes extremely difficult to address child rights issues.
For children, birth certificate is a protection tool to face child'trafficking, child marriage, commercial sexual exploitation and children in conflict with the law.