IT MAY earn brickbats for the most part but the Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) has stolen a march over civic bodies the State over in clearing backlog of unregistered births.
The corporation registered and certified the births of nearly 1.40 lakh children aged between 0-10 from ’93-03 as part of a nationwide campaign by the Union Government to bring kids whose births normally go unnoticed by authorities into the census’ fold.
While most civic bodies stopped focussing on the task when the campaign concluded in 2003 the IMC kept right on. Between January 1, 2004 and June 30, 2006 the Corporation not only logged the births of 88,507 kids aged 0-10 but also arranged for their birth certificates to be distributed free of costs through 150 nursing homes and hospitals.
In fact, the IMC is at least three years ahead of even the Centre which only ordered the second edition of the nationwide birth registration campaign last month through an order by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner.
“After the inaugural campaign, lasting from ’93-03, came to a halt we carried on registration and certification of births. The IMC issued 34,000 certificates in ’04, 38,000 the following year and have so far issued 16,507 in the current year”, revealed IMC in-charge of birth and death certification Dr K S Verma.
{{/usCountry}}“After the inaugural campaign, lasting from ’93-03, came to a halt we carried on registration and certification of births. The IMC issued 34,000 certificates in ’04, 38,000 the following year and have so far issued 16,507 in the current year”, revealed IMC in-charge of birth and death certification Dr K S Verma.
{{/usCountry}}“By deciding to press on with backlog clearance we had already expedited a majority of the cases by the time the Census Commissioner’s letter landed at our desk”, he added.
The missive, copies of which have been forwarded to all districts by the State Government, calls for the involvement of district education officers in the campaign. In cases where the students are not enrolled in school it directs the secretary of the concerned gram panchayat and Aanganwadi workers to get in touch with the parents to collect information about the child.