Citizens angry as GHMC delays granting birth-death certificates

 Courtesy by : The Siasat Daily Media 

 GHMC office

Hyderabad: Six months into the launch of online birth and death certificates by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC), not much progress has been seen even as numerous grievance applications remain pending.

Many people have complained through Twitter to the GHMC over the delay in issuing these certificates. The process gets more complicated with middlemen and unprofessional officials attempting to extort money by various means.

The process of issuing a birth certificate takes approximately 15 days as it first involves the applicant approaching the customer service centre of the GHMC with the hospital discharge summary. The applicant then fills in the documents and hands them over to the Assistant Medical Officer of Health (AMOH) who after clearance hands it over to the data entry officer.

The data entry officer verifies the details and uploads them into the GHMC server. The certificate can be obtained at any Mee-Seva centre.

Recently on March 17, a fake birth certificate racket was busted by the SR Nagar police where five persons were arrested.

Speaking to the Times of India, a civic activist, Harish Daga, said that this is not a new thing. “Fake birth certificate racket isn’t something new. They (GHMC) need to ensure that the grievances are redressed in a time-bound manner. Transparency and accountability need to be restored by placing the right standard operating procedures.”