The State Government has given the status of Registrar, birth/death certificates to the in-charge Medical Officer of government hospitals having 30 or more beds in the district.
Now, people need not make rounds of urban bodies or police stations for birth/death certificate. According to Deputy Director, Health Services, Dr RN Pandey, the arrangement has been started in the Government hospitals having 30 or more bed facility in the district. He said that work has been started on the instructions given to the medical officers for issuing certificates in the cases of childbirth in the hospital or death occurred in the hospital. With this people would get much relief, he added.
Dr Pandey said that the doctors who are in-charge of all development blocks have to report on the issuance of birth/death certificates to the Department of Statistics in prescribed format. The Birth/death certificate would be issued free of cost within 21 days. Thereafter,Rs 2 fee will be charged upto 7 days. On applying after one month, certificate will be issued after taking permission from the Sub Divisional Officer, Revenue. If the certificate were demanded after a year, it would be issued after taking permission from the District Statistical Officer.
On the guidelines of the State Government, proforma related to birth/death certificate has been made available to all the hospitals. It is considered that on getting birth/death certificates from government hospitals, the poor people living in villages would get much benefit of it. In Bastar region, death certificate is an important record for getting compensation after death by snakebite, thunderbolt and road accidents. For that, the needy had to make rounds of Police station, Sarpanch and Patwari for months.