Centre wants to keep birth, death database

What is the News?

The Centre has proposed amendments to a Registration of Births and Deaths Act (RBD),1969 that will enable it to “maintain the database of registered birth and deaths at the national level”.

What are the amendments proposed by the Centre?

Presently, the registration of births and deaths is done by the local registrar appointed by States.

But the Centre has now proposed to insert Section 3A in the Registration of Births and Deaths Act (RBD), 1969.

As per this amendment, the Chief Registrar (appointed by the States) would maintain a unified database of births and deaths at the State level and integrate it with the data at the “national level” maintained by the Registrar General of India(RGI). This will imply that the Centre will be a parallel repository of data.

The database can then be used by the Registrar General with the approval of the Central government to update the 

• Population Register prepared under the Citizenship Act, 1955; 
• Electoral registers or electoral rolls prepared under the Representation of the People Act, 1951; 
• Aadhaar database prepared under the Aadhaar Act, 2016; 
• Ration card database prepared under the National Food Security Act, 2013; 
• Passport database prepared under the Passport Act and 
• Other databases at the national level subject.

What is the significance of this amendment?

If the amendments are implemented, the Centre could use the data to update the National Population Register (NPR), first prepared in 2010 and revised through door-to-door enumeration in 2015. 

Note: As per Citizenship Rules, 2003, NPR is the first step towards the creation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

About the other amendments proposed?

Another proposed amendment is the appointment of “Special Sub-Registrars, in the event of a disaster, with any or all of his powers and duties for the on-spot registration of deaths and issuance of extract thereof as may be prescribed”.

Source: This post is based on the article “Centre wants to keep birth, death database” published in PIB on 25th October 2021.