Birth, Death Registration: Revenue over public suffering?

The Local Government Division has instructed Dhaka South City Corporation to utilise the central server of the Registrar General's Office for issuing birth and death certificates to residents within their jurisdiction, over its own.

The LGD sent a letter to DSCC Chief Executive Officer Md Mizanur Rahman to this effect on May 13. However, DSCC is yet to comply with it.

This directive comes after a period of friction between DSCC and central Registrar General's Office. In June 2023, DSCC demanded to retain revenue generated from issuing birth and death certificates. However, revenue for issuing these services goes in the national treasury.

DSCC then suspended issuing birth and death certificates for which people were the ultimate sufferers.

On October 4, DSCC launched its own server to issue birth and death certificates, and kept the service charge to themselves. Since October last year, about 80,000 citizens have registered through DSCC's new server, sources said.

The service charge per application was Tk 100, meaning DSCC generated a revenue of Tk 80,00,000 in the last seven months.

However, this too came at a cost of city dwellers. While the DSCC's server streamlined the application process for its residents, it operated independently of the national server. This meant that birth and death information registered through the DSCC system was not being recorded centrally.

This created a significant hurdle for DSCC residents seeking services that rely on national registration data, such as passports and driving licences.

Zahirul Islam from Gandaria, Dhaka, was advised by his doctor to seek treatment in India. However, at the Keraniganj Regional Passport Office, he was told he couldn't get a passport because his DSCC birth registration number wasn't in the national server.

"It is very important for me to go to India for treatment, but I can't go because of the birth registration. I don't know when it's going to be okay," said Zahirul.

Towhidur Rahman's two-month-old daughter, despite having an Australian passport, does not have a birth certificate in the country yet. "Australia now requires parents' birth registration numbers for a child's birth registration. My wife has hers, but mine from DSCC isn't accepted here because it's not in the national server," said Towhidur.

So the LGD intervened. A letter signed by Mohammad Shamsul Islam, deputy secretary of the City Corporation-1 branch, reminded the DSCC that all other local government entities use the central server for birth and death registration.

The letter stressed that a separate system could lead to "chaos" and hinder citizen services. In the public interest, the LGD directed the DSCC to resume using the central server and transfer existing data from their own system.

Contacted, DSCC Chief Executive Officer Mizanur Rahman said on Thursday that they have received the letter.

"However, we are still requesting the Registrar General to integrate our new server with their server. We do not want to use the central server," he said.

He said the Registrar General's Office did not have the capacity to register the large number of people across the country.

"Considering people's sufferings, DSCC has started the registration work on its own server," he said.

He also mentioned that they have sent letters to the relevant authorities to resolve the issues related to obtaining a passport and other essential services.

"Deals will be signed with various government organisations in this regard," he informed.

When asked if DSCC would reply to the LGD letter, he hung up the phone, saying that he had urgent work.

Speaking with the newspaper, Registrar General (Birth and Death Registration) Zahid Hossain said, "We are working based on government directives and the Birth and Death Registration Act 2004 and the Birth and Death Registration Rules 2018."

"If the DSCC wants to register its residents again through our central server, we will welcome them as their users are still on our servers. At the same time, if they give us the data of the 80,000 birth registrations they have completed, we will add them to the central server. For this, no citizen will have to come in person or pay any fee," he informed.