Digital birth registration

This will help citizens in the birth registration process at a time when the pandemic has restricted people’s movement

Maintaining proper records of births is necessary for effective planning in order to ensure provision of facilities to citizens, particularly to children. Launched in 2017 by the Sindh government, in collaboration with Unicef, more than 500,000 children have so far been registered under the digital birth registration programme in the province. A government official informed media-persons that the programme was piloted in Thatta, and later extended to Badin, Naushero Feroze and Karachi.

The initiative is aimed at ensuring, facilitating and expediting the registration of children at the time of birth, especially in rural areas. The main purpose of the whole exercise is to safeguard children’s fundamental rights. The programmes is claimed to have greatly helped in the registration of newborns with Nadra with the help of union councils. The programme has, reportedly, also helped with collection of data and facilitates citizens’ access to records. Now the government is setting up desks for registration under the project at hospitals.

The significance of digital registration of births can be gauged from the fact that it facilitates citizens at all stages of life, most importantly recognition of identity at the official level. Encouraged by the success of the programme, the provincial government plans to extend it to the entire province. It has also announced the launch of a mobile registration system for registering the birth of babies at their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. This will help citizens in the birth registration process at a time when the long-persisting pandemic has restricted people’s physical movement.

The initiative will help in several ways both the citizens and the government. As it ensures children’s identity, they will encounter no problems in obtaining the national identity card, the most important document to get rights as citizens. The right to get the national identity card enables people to get their other rights as citizens. 

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2020.

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