Birth certificate charges slashed
The residents of Rawalpindi will be entitled to free registration of births and deaths, besides applying for birth certificates from abroad.
After promulgation of the new local government system, the Punjab government has introduced new laws for the registration of birth and death certificates.
Under the new law, the provision of a normal birth registration certificate has been made free of cost. However, the fee for obtaining a computerised birth certificate has been fixed at Rs200.
Dual registration of a child has been strictly prohibited and it has been declared as a crime under the laws for misrepresentation of identity.
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The provincial government has also introduced a new law for the registration of children born abroad or in jail. This law would apply to unwanted children being raised at different social welfare organisations.
For the births abroad, the application has to be filed within 180 days through the Pakistani embassy while the nomination of a guardian has been declared mandatory for the children in socio-welfare organisations abandoned by their parents.
A jailed mother would give registration application through the doctor in jail hospital and jailer after conceiving a child while the place-of-birth for the infant would be written as jail.
The birth and death registration would be carried out serially and violation of it would be considered a crime.
The enrolment of children conceived in jails would be carried out with red ink while green ink has been allocated for those born abroad.
It would also be mandatory to carry out registration of deaths and births of transgender persons too.
The entry of wrong information would be deemed as a crime and the government official convicted of the offense would be sacked from the job.
The new law has also empowered the people for checking the birth and death records of other persons or families against a fee of Rs100.
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However, it would be an offense to publicise wrong dates of a person on any platform and the violator would face action under the Cyber Crime Act.
The date of birth can only be altered through a court order and it would be considered a crime if it would be carried out through any other means.
For quick processing, the number of registration centres for birth and death certificates have been increased from 4,200 to 25,000 while all panchayat and neighborhood councils have been empowered to perform the process as well.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 19th, 2020.