Patna, Dec. 11: Spurt in development department principal secretary Vijoy Prakash today said anganwadi sevikas would be made registrars to encourage more birth registrations, particularly in rural areas.

According to the plans of the department, schoolteachers would be made informers for intensifying the birth regis-tration system in the state. The prospect of involving eunuchs and scavengers as informers in the civil registration system is also on the cards.

“At present, only 25 to 30 lakh of the 2 crore schoolchildren in the state have birth registration certificates. To improve the situation, anganwadi sevikas would be made registrars. The sevikas would ensure timely registration of newborns (21 days). This process will start in the next few days,” Prakash said.

He was addressing a state-level workshop on civil registration system, jointly organised by the directorate of economics and statistics and the state planning and development department with support from UNICEF, Bihar.

At present, there are about 90,000 anganwadi kendras in Bihar and the anganwadi workers keep a tab on pregnant women in their respective areas.

“We are also going to carry out a massive birth and death registration campaign from April 2012. Teachers of about 70,000 government schools would be made informers as part of the campaign, who would inform about births to the registrar concerned. We are also considering involvement of eunuchs and scavengers for strengthening birth and death registration system because of their vast local coverage. Moreover, efforts would be made to improve the logistics of birth/death registration forms and certificates in the state,” Prakash said.