Registration charges for birth/death certificates up
Posted on: 28/Jan/2018 8:11:59 PM
A Government Order amending the Tamil Nadu Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 2000 has been passed. This has led to a sudden increase in charges for services related to birth and death registration to be paid to the Chennai Metro Corporation.
The Government Order has been issued by the Health and Family Welfare Department. Local bodies have been advised accordingly to collect the above charges.
So far, the residents of the Chennai Metro City had been availing of several such services free of cost and at a minimum fee of Rs. 2 for a few services.
As per the above amendment of Birth and Death Rules, they will now have to pay up to Rs. 500 per service. It is worth noting here that presently, many of the services pertaining to birth and death registration in the Chennai Corporation area are free.
Following this amendment, the new charges are scheduled to be effective from February in all the districts of the state.
The citizens, who are already upset by this sudden introduction of charges, further apprehend that they may even be charged for downloading these certificates from the net.
In fact, the residents in other parts of the State, including the suburbs of Chennai, have already started paying higher charges for services on vital statistics.
On the other hand, the Corporation officials have defied the government order, offering many of the services free. It is quite obvious that the civic body cannot sustain the practice of defying the Government Order, without government approval for long. So. it is planning to get an exemption from the government to offer the services free. In case this move is rejected, the city residents would have to pay Rs. 200 for downloading each copy of a birth certificate or a death certificate online.
Also, the residents would have to pay Rs. 500 towards late fee for failure to register a birth or death within one year of its occurrence. It is worth noting that earlier, the late fee was just Rs. 10, according to the Tamil Nadu Registration of Births and Deaths Rules, 2000.
In this development, the former councillors have stressed on the need for providing the services relating to birth and death free of cost.
A former corporation councillor observed that the Chennai Corporation was the first to issue birth and death certificates online. If the government wants to emulate the model, let them offer all services free of cost. They should not increase the fees. The poor will not be able to pay exorbitant charges. All residents will oppose the decision.
On the government side, the senior officials of the Health Department said the decision on increasing the fee was made after getting approval from the Registrar General of India. The Chennai Corporation model will be adopted in the entire State. But the new system with higher charges will only discipline people, by encouraging them to register births and deaths immediately.
The online system for issuance of birth and death certificates will be launched in the second week of February in the entire State
