Governance
Amendment in Civil Registration System
- 29 Apr 2022
- 4 min read
For Prelims: Civil Registration System, National Population Register, Registrar General of India
For Mains: Population and Associated Issues, Government Policies & Interventions, Need and Significance of Amendment in Civil Registration System
Why in News?
According to the 2020-21 annual report of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the Central government is planning to revamp the Civil Registration System (CRS) to enable the registration of birth and death in real-time with minimum human interface that will be independent of location.
- The RGI (Registrar General of India) is empowered under Section 3(3) of the Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969 to take steps to coordinate and unify the activities of Chief Registrars of Births and Deaths of all States
What is the Civil Registration System?
- Civil Registration System (CRS) in India is the unified process of continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the vital events (births, deaths, stillbirths) and characteristics thereof.
- The data generated through a complete and up-to-date CRS is essential for socio-economic planning.
What are the Proposed Amendments?
- Updating for New Changes due to Birth and Death:
- There is a need to update the NPR (National Population Register) again, first collated in 2010 and updated in 2015 with Aadhaar, mobile and ration card numbers “to incorporate the changes due to birth, death and migration.
- CRS facing various Challenges:
- The CRS system is facing challenges in terms of timelines, efficiency and uniformity, leading to delayed and under-coverage of birth and death.
- To address the challenges faced by the system in providing prompt service delivery to the public, the Government of India has decided to introduce transformational changes in the Civil Registration System of the country through an IT [information technology] enabled backbone leading to registration of birth and death on a real-time basis with minimum human interface.
- Automation and Time Bound System:
- The changes would be in terms of automating the process delivery points so that the service delivery was time-bound, uniform and free from discretion.
- The changes would be sustainable, scalable and independent of the location.
- Amendments to RBD Act:
- It also proposed amendments to the Registration of Births and Deaths (RBD) Act , 1969 that will enable it to “maintain the database of registered birth and deaths at the national level.
- According to the proposed amendments, the database may be used to update the Population Register, Electoral Register, Aadhar, Ration Card, Passport and Driving License databases.
- The registration of birth and death is mandatory under the RBD Act and the Chief Registrar is mandated to publish a statistical report on the registered births and deaths during the year.
Way Forward
- A very techno-utopian idea of governance is needed, where citizens don’t have to ask for anything and the government will provide it before one demand it.
- To achieve this techno-utopian reality, a unified population database needs to be created which can be effectively used to track people in real-time.
