India has initiated the process of creating digital birth certificates, which will serve as comprehensive documents for various purposes.
The digital birth certificates can be used for admission to educational institutions, job applications, passport applications, Aadhaar card registration, voter enrolment, marriage registration, and other official purposes.
The move is aimed at avoiding the need for multiple documents to prove date and place of birth.
The Registration of Births and Deaths Amendment Bill, 2023, was tabled in the Lok Sabha to introduce these changes.
The Bill proposes that States must register births and deaths on the Centre's Civil Registration System portal and share the data with the Registrar General of India, which operates under the Union Home Ministry.
The centralization of the register is intended to facilitate updating other databases and improve the efficiency and transparency of service delivery and social benefits.
The Bill includes provisions for digital registration and electronic delivery of birth and death certificates to the public.
The new rules will apply to all individuals born after the Bill becomes law.
Aadhaar numbers of parents and informants will be collected, if available, during the birth registration process.
The registration process will be made easier for adopted, orphaned, abandoned, surrogate, and children of single parents or unwed mothers.
Objections And Responses
The Bill faced objections from various quarters when it was initially introduced, leading to an investigation by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
The JPC received around 1,300 representations from diverse groups, including tribal rights groups and independent think-tanks, expressing objections to certain clauses of the Bill.
Despite the objections, the JPC thoroughly examined the issues raised but ultimately decided to dismiss them.
One of the objections was related to the belief that the amendments in the Bill weakened the impact of the Supreme Court's 1996 judgement in the Godavarman case, which had provided protection to extensive forest areas, even if they were not officially recognized as forests.
Another objection was about the new name of the Act - Van (Sanrakshan Evam Samvardhan) Adhiniyam, meaning Forest (Conservation and Augmentation) Act, instead of the existing Forest (Conservation) Act.
Critics argued that the new name was "non-inclusive" and excluded many non-Hindi speaking populations in South India and the Northeast.
Concerns were raised that certain forest lands near the borders would lose their protected status under the new Act.
In response to questions raised in Parliament, the Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav clarified that the Bill includes provisions to improve infrastructure, particularly roads, for soldiers stationed in the sub-zero temperatures of Ladakh.
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