Thiruvananthapuram: Soon, birth and death certificates issued by the city corporation dating from 1950 can be accessed online.
The health wing of the city corporation is nearing the completition of the data entry process of birth and death records in the city for the period from 1950-1970. Of the 78,652 records which could be retrieved from the archives, the corporation has completed data entry of 60,072 records.
It has been a laborious process for the staff involved as many of the records were illegible or were in tatters. “We have retrieved as many records as we can for the digitization process. Some of the old records have remained intact due to the paper quality, whereas other old records come off easily from age. We had to handle such records carefully and do the data entry,” said SS Minu, registrar of births and deaths, Thiruvananthapuram city corporation.
The civic body often receives applications from elderly citizens to trace birth certificates dating before 1970. Often, the requests are made by people who wish to travel abroad and stay with their children.
“We were able to retrieve one such certificate which was issued way back in 1933. The request came from a woman who was born in Thiruvananthapuram and then shifted to Mumbai. She wanted to move to the US for which the birth certificate was required,” said SS Minu.
The officials said the whole digitization process would be completed in around three months. Then onwards, old certificates of birth and deaths registered within the hospitals coming under corporation limits can be accessed online. The upcoming launch of the K-Smart app, a new initiative of the local self-government department will also make the process easier, officials said.
The digitization process was earlier carried out from 1985 to 1970. The process involves data entry, verification, and uploading documents online. The old, crumbling registers with pages eaten away by moths make the process even more cumbersome for the officials. In cases where it is difficult to trace the documents, the registrar can obtain sanction from the government and complete the verification process. The worst task is dealing with cases where registration would have involved a series of enquiries.
“All the pages have to be traced back in such cases during the process of verification and if the register is not maintained properly, each page has to be read carefully. Sometimes, the script may not be legible, and we have to piece together the pages to collate information,” said a health official associated with the project.
Once the process is completed, people can download the registration documents online by providing the name, address, or identification number provided in the document.
With the completion of the digitization process, the civic body plans to hand over the old registration documents to the archives department.
