All reported births, and deaths are to be digitally registered from October 1 on the Centre's portal, according to a government notification.

'The Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023' paves the way for digital birth certificates to be a single document to be used for admission to educational institutions, applications for driving licenses, government jobs, passports or Aadhar, voter enrollment, and registration of marriage.

'In exercise of the powers conferred by sub-section (2) of Section 1 of the Registration of Births and Deaths (Amendment) Act, 2023 (20 of 23), the Central Government hereby appoints the 1st day of October 2023 as the date on which the provisions of the said Act shall come into force.'

National Population Register:

The centralised database will also update the National Population Register (NPR), ration cards, property registration, and electoral rolls. NPR first collected in 2010 and updated in 2015 through door-to-door enumeration, already has a database of 119 crore residents. NPR is the first step to the creation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC), as per the Citizenship Act.

It will be compulsory for States to register births and deaths on the Centre's Civil Registration System (CRS) portal and share data with the RGI which functions under the Union Home Ministry.

The Act authorises the government to 'collect Aadhar numbers of parents and informant, if available, in case of birth registration.' Currently, either parent voluntarily provides an Aadhar number for a newborn's birth certificate generated through the CRS.

The centralisation of the database for births and deaths will be helpful in demographic analysis but will come with its pros and cons. All the well, uniformity in data collection shall be the mark from October 2023 onwards. Overlapping and duplication shall be ruled out of the picture.

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Reference:

• thehindu.com