The BMC’s birth and death registration office in Bhubaneswar. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, July 31: The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has urged hospitals and nursing homes in the capital city to make registration of births and deaths online.

After August 15, sources said, the civic body would not allow the healthcare delivery institutions to furnish the corporation hardcopies for registration of births and deaths. Everything in this regard will have to be done online.

The corporation has taken this decision to ensure that the birth and death certificates can be issued online and people can receive certificates the same day under the e-municipality application project.

The commissioner has asked the city health officer to communicate with the healthcare delivery institutions on a priority basis, as among all projects under the e-municipality application scheme, online issue of birth and death certificates is the only one lagging behind.

The corporation sources said that while there were more than 100 healthcare delivery institutions in the city, only 30 were sending their birth and death registration data online to the city health office.

“While the e-municipality application has gained popularity across the state and the neighbouring city of Cuttack has already become successful in roping in more than 100 healthcare delivery institutions in the online registration mode, Bhubaneswar is still lagging behind. It seems that people in the hospitals in Bhubaneswar and employees of the city health office are not coming forward for online implementation of issuance of birth and death certificates, as there is an existence of a bribery chain. Employees of the city health office were opposing the move of issuing birth and death certificates online even at the initial stage. However, the pursuance of higher corporation officers at several review meetings and fear of drastic action has lately yielded results. The staff were also given training on computerisation of the entire process at the city health office,” said a corporation official.

At present, the e-municipality application of the corporation is being processed by the Tata Consultancy Service and Orissa e-Governance Services Limited, a part of the Orissa Computer Application Centre.

“Around 30 healthcare institutions are linked to computers of the city health office, while others are still depending on issuing hard copies. But, as the authorities have decided not to allow paper registration of certificates after August 15, the institutions concerned should register themselves as soon as possible. They will be given separate user identity numbers and passwords, and the entire training process will take around three to four hours,” said a consultant working for the e-municipality project.

Outgoing city health officer Ashok Kumar Panda said: “The time taken for issuing the certificates is not yet streamlined, as the process involves manual practices. But, once the online process is through, the certificates can be produced in a single day.”

Information technology officials of the corporation said that for all kinds of transactions, the traditional book-keeping practice had still been in practice in the civic body.

“However, soon a computerised system of accounting process will be adopted as part of the e-municipality project. A trial run has already started for this. It will be implemented after ensuring that the internal network is foolproof. After a series of successful trials, we will make it open for the use of the public,” said an information technology officer.