Delhi residents asked to check birth proof for 2012-2022

MCD advised residents to check and download updated birth certificates due to issues with duplicate registration numbers from previous municipal corporations.

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Sunday advised that Delhi residents who obtained birth certificates of their family members from the erstwhile north, south and east Delhi municipal corporations to check the status of the certificates and download the updated documents from the civic body’s website.

A senior MCD official explained that the revision and update has been carried out due to cases being reported where people were facing problems in verification of the certificates. (HT file photo for representation)

The MCD was split into the north, south and east MCD in 2012 and reunited into single urban local body in 2022. In an attempt to weed out the duplication of registration numbers that had crept into the birth registration database, the civic body updated the certificates issued by the erstwhile corporations. In a public notice released on Sunday, it said that only the “updated certificates will be treated as valid.”

HT graphic

Delhi witnesses over 300, 000 birth registrations every year. Overall, between 2012 and 2022 a total of 3,824,837 birth registrations have been carried out in Delhi. Around 90% of the birth registrations occur in MCD areas, officials said.

According to the annual birth and death certificate report issued by the statistics department, 300,350 birth certificates were issued in Delhi in 2022; 271,786 birth certificates in 2021; and 301,645 birth certificates in 2020.

In a public notice, the MCD said, “Earlier, birth certificates were issued under the same registration number across the former corporations. To ensure each certificate now carries a unique registration number, necessary corrective measures have been implemented and revised certificates have been issued.”

The notice adds that in “case of any difficulty during verification, people are advised to download the latest issued certificate from the official portals https://mcdonline.nic.in or https://rbd.mcdonline.nic.in and use it for verification purposes, as only the updated certificate will be treated as valid.”

A senior MCD official explained that the revision and update has been carried out due to cases being reported where people were facing problems in verification of the certificates.

“Several instances were brought to our notice where the education department was not able to verify the birth certificates as multiple certificates has same registration number. Most of these cases pertain to period from 2020 to 2022,” said the official. “All three civic bodies were using the National Informatics Centre (NIC) portal to generate the registration numbers therefore such cases have crept in. We have updated the registration number by adding suffix N to the numbers issued by North MCD and suffix E to the ones issues by East MCD.”

The official added that the public notice can be used by the citizens to communicate the situation to the departments which are undertaking the verification of the birth or death certificate. “We also advise the residents to download the updated certificate. If the number mentioned in updated certificates are used, the verification process will see no issues,” the official said. “Around 10 lakh certificates issued during 2020, 2021 and 2022 are primarily impacted — when the new platform was put in place — but people with certificates issued by North, South and East MCD should check their status.

Atul Goel, head of URJA, an umbrella body of RWAs in Delhi, said the municipality’s online services are already not up to the mark and lakhs of people shouldn’t be made to suffer due to the civic body’s mistake. “They should rectify these issues at their end. All the data about ward, hospital and birth events is available with them. They should rectify the situation at coding level so that the numbers issued previously can lead to the correct certificate. Why should people be made to download new certificates while the problem lies at verification level?”