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The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has further decentralised the work of issuing birth and death certificates so that citizens can access their documents or even make corrections at the ward office level.
Earlier, the birth or death data had to reach a medical officer at a zonal office through ward offices and this took time in issuing the certificates.
“Now the ward medical officer has been given the power to issue these certificates,” additional municipal commissioner Rubal Agarwal told The Indian Express based on an order issued by municipal commissioner Vikram Kumar on June 10.
For instance, if a baby is born at a hospital at Aundh but the mother hails from Hadapsar, the birth registration will be done at the Aundh-Baner ward office. If there are additions or corrections to be made in the original certificate, she no longer needs to go to the Aundh-Baner ward office but can get it corrected at the Hadapsar ward office near her home, PMC health officials said.
This development comes after the civic administration adopted a uniform software application introduced by the Union government for registration of births and deaths.
In Pune, there are five zones and the registration had already been decentralised at the zonal level. Each zone has three ward offices and now with the new order, birth and death registration certificates can be issued at the ward level.
However, certificates at the ward level will be issued only to those who have been born or died after March 2019. Certificates dated before this can be accessed at the main civil registration office of Kasba Peth.
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