A Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) councillor who runs an orphanage asked deputy mayor Atin Ghosh about ways an orphan found abandoned on the street can get a birth certificate.
Biswarup De, the councillor from Ward 48, informed the deputy mayor on Wednesday that two boys in his orphanage had turned 18 and would now need birth certificates. De, who raised the question at the KMC's monthly meeting of all councillors, said he had been trying in vain for three years to get them the certificates.
Ghosh, in charge of the KMC's health department, said a doctor had to write that the two were found on the street. The KMC can then move ahead and issue the birth certificates.
As the KMC grapples with an increasing number of people applying for birth certificates — some have lost them, while others never got one issued, and many others have corrections to make — in the wake of fears sparked by the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR), the councillor's question left KMC officials without an immediate answer.
A KMC official told Metro it was difficult to issue a birth certificate if the child's place of birth is not known. "We issue birth certificates as per the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969. The Act states that a municipal body or any urban local body can issue a birth certificate only if the child was born within the territorial jurisdiction of that local body," the official said.