Computerisation helps, but not enough

PUNE, Oct 7: The Pune Municipal Corporation may boast of being the first civic body to computerise the records of birth and death. Yet, f...

PUNE, Oct 7: The Pune Municipal Corporation may boast of being the first civic body to computerise the records of birth and death. Yet, for several people, it is a long and frustrating run from pillar to post to procure the crucial certificate simply because data from the old, dusty, moth-eaten and torn files has still to be fed in the computers.

Roy Stephenson from Fatimanagar has been trying to obtain his daughter’s birth certificate for nearly two months now. In his case, however, the records have not been eaten away by rats, but the PMC has failed to register his daughter’s name in the 1974 records!

Roy’s wife Audrey is emphatic that the records at Phadke nursing home show that her daughter was born in 1974. The information was passed on to the PMC. She is baffled how her daughter’s name is missing from the PMC records. Often, parents have had no option but to plead to the elected members in the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) to help them.

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In most cases the shoddy maintenance of the old records dating back to the 50s obstructs speedy disposal of the computerised birth and death certificates. Some records of the 60s have pages still covered with sand. All details have been wiped out by the Panshet floods. In view of all such problems that dog the speedy disposal of certificates, the PMC had launched an ambitious computerisation project in 1996 and fed in the data from 1993.

While computerisation has ensured that certificates are issued within three days, inadequate staff to carry out the enormous work of transferring the data and maintaining old records has put the entire project in a limbo. When contacted, V.S. Mamil, in charge of the copying section, said nearly a lakh birth and death certificates are distributed annually. In all 45,000 births and 20,000 deaths are registered yearly. The annual revenue is Rs 12 lakh.

While the major rush for certificates is from December to July due to school and college admission, the section has ensured that the information from the original hospital records is transferred on floppies. While he shrugged helplessly at the huge racks that were stuffed with voluminous but rodent-eaten records, Mamil admitted that with only six machines and a paltry staff, the section was doing all it can to provide the certificates within two days.