A few months later, Calcuttans will not have to trudge all the way to the civic headquarters on SN Banerjee Road to collect birth certificates. The documents will be available from the borough offices, too.

As part of an e-networking drive, for which the Calcutta Municipal Corporation is investing Rs 100 crore, the record room and the 15 borough offices are being linked online.

Once the process is complete, a borough health officer will check the records maintained at the CMC headquarters and issue a birth certificate within seconds.

According to municipal commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay, the service will be available soon after the Pujas.

The CMC, on an average, issues more than 400 birth certificates daily. If the changes in names or spellings are taken into account, the figure crosses 5,000.

Till 1997, the civic body would take at least three months to issue a birth certificate. There were allegations that the delay could be shortened only if one bribed an employee.

The process was regularised to some extent after former municipal commissioner Asim Barman computerised the birth and death certificate wing of the CMC.

However, for want of inter-departmental networking, delivery of birth certificates, like other civic services, could not be decentralised.

The networking programme, comprising both LAN and WAN connectivity, is being undertaken with funds from the British government.