Paper shortage stops birth, marriage and death registration

20 union councils unable to give certificates for eight days.

LAHORE:

Several union councils in the city have been unable to issue birth, death or marriage certificates to citizens for over a week due to a shortage of security paper, The Express Tribune has learnt.

All deaths, births and marriages are supposed to be registered with the local union council office, which then issues certificates on paper printed by the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

But some 20 union councils have not received the paper for eight days. “Many people have approached us for birth and death certificates but we have had to turn them away,” said UC-108 Secretary Badar Mohiyuddin.

He said that this was not a novel situation. “This happens every few weeks, but this time it has happened for a much longer period of time. We sent several requests to NADRA officials and also approached the DCO,” Mohiyuddin said.



“We have been lucky as we received some paper from NADRA on Saturday,” said UC-106 Secretary Muhammad Sadiq, adding that the shortage had lasted seven days. “It is very difficult to tell people who are grieving the death of a loved one that they have to wait for the certificate,” he said.

The NADRA public relations officer was not available for comment.

District Officer (Community) Zulfiqar Haidar told The Express Tribune that more than 20 union councils were facing a shortage of paper. He said that the NADRA office had told them that they had a printing problem, which was causing the delay. But they expected to resolve the problem by Monday, he said.

“We will take up the matter with senior NADRA officials so this does not happen again. On average, every union council issues 200 security papers a month to register marriages, deaths or births,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2013.