Birth registration awareness

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 18. Following the National Conference on Birth Registration held here recently, priority areas where awareness needs to be built in have been identified and the Delhi declaration has been circulated to all concerned planners and stake-holders.

The draft declaration, circulated to representatives of all government departments as well as local government units, underscores the importance of achieving universal birth registration in the future.

The declaration is an expression of commitment of all stake- holders who have unequivocally expressed the belief that ``Our best contribution to all children who will be born in India is to ensure that their right to registration, name and identity is fully realised.''

``We commit our support for advocacy, capacity building, resource mobilisation, networking and management among others, to strengthen birth registration system in the country in close partnership with the Office of the Registrar General of India, Chief Registrar of all States and the Registrars at various levels,'' the declaration says.

The stakeholders also expressed concern over the low level of birth registration in some states. ``We are deeply concerned about the low level of birth registration among disadvantaged groups and express our resolve to give priority to meet the needs and demands of such areas and people,'' the declaration adds.

At the policy level, the declaration emphasises the importance of amending the 11th schedule of the Constitution to include civil registration explicitly and also amending the Birth Registration Act t provide for catch-up registration at the time of the first immunisation contact.

A task force on Birth registration has also been demanded at the national, state and local levels with wide representation of Government, corporate and civil society representation. This task force, the declaration says, needs to be represented in the Information Task Force with a wider mandate.

Among the national actions recommended are the establishment of the birth registration watch, finalisation of guidelines for preparing digital archives of records older than 100 years and integration of information bases from different programmes with Birth Registration being an integral part.

The state-level actions recommended include developing clear plan for storage and preservation of records at various levels and conducting baseline surveys to identify the backlog have been recommended at the local level. Special attention should be paid to registration of girls, the conference had recommended.

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