COIMBATORE, June 18, 2015
- R. SAIRAM
The State Government is working on an e-governance project to integrate two Central Government databases with Tamil Nadu’s civil registration system, which records all births and deaths.
Towards this, orders were issued to include Aadhaar numbers of parents in birth certificates and the Aadhaar number of the deceased in the death certificate as well. In the G.O. No: 154, issued on May 25, Director of Stationery and Printing was instructed to print the forms (Nos: 5 and 6 respectively) with a provision to include the 12-digit Aadhaar number.
Linking databases
A highly place source in the Public Health Department told The Hindu on Wednesday that the State Government is working to link the National Population Register (NPR), maintained by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India and Aadhaar card with the Tamil Nadu’s Civil Registration System software, which has been provided by the Registrar General of India.
Trial runs of this project were already underway. Tamil Nadu is in the forefront of implementing Aadhaar card and NPR. It has achieved nearly 85 per cent coverage in NPR with almost similar levels in Aadhaar card.
The Department of Public Health is working with the Revenue Department and the local bodies for this project. The State Bureau of Health Intelligence is leading the efforts in this integration.
Certificates online
Among the initial benefits is that such a link-up of different databases will make birth and death certificates available online across Tamil Nadu. Such a system is now available only in select Corporation limits in the State, including Chennai and Coimbatore. This project will extend it to the rural areas as well.
In the initial phases of implementation, centralised software will be provided to all primary health centres and Government hospitals where birth certificates are issued.
Following this, the staff will be given intensive training as this involved issuing a legal document.
The project will be implemented in phases across Tamil Nadu. Places with requisite infrastructure will be chosen initially.
The source said that the long-term objective is to streamline implementation of all schemes offered by the State and Central Governments.