PRESIDENT LAUNCHES NATIONAL CAMPAIGN
ON BIRTH CERTIFICATES
The President, Dr.
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam formally launched the National Campaign on
issuing of Birth Certificates to children at a function held at
Rashtrapati Bhavan here. Parents of selected children from Delhi
and Uttar Pradesh were given Birth Certificates by the President
on the occasion. In his message Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam stressed
the importance of birth registration as a step in providing identity
to every child. He said that as the members of a civil society,
it is our duty to ensure that the children are properly cared
and provided for. He also pointed to the need to have reliable
data on births and deaths and several related indicators for planning
and monitoring of programmes at District and Development Block
level so that there is better implementation of the programmes
through community involvement. He appealed all concerned to ensure
that every birth in the country is registered and the birth certificate
issued free of cost.
The week-long
Campaign from November 14-20, 2003 has been organized by the Registrar
general, India with the support of the State Governments to issue
Birth Certificates to all children born during the last 10 years.
The Campaign would be taken up in three phases.
In the first
phase of the campaign those children whose births have been registered
and are living within the village/town of their birth would be
targeted, as their birth must have been registered in the same
village/town. In the second phase of campaign children born in
places other than the village/town where they are currently staying
would be targeted. This phase would involve getting the birth
certificates from the place where they were born and distributed
to the children. It is also proposed to cover all the children
whose births have not been registered in the third phase, where
the births would be registered and certificates issued.
The aim of the
campaign is also that the issuing of birth certificates to the
children is expected to create awareness among the public about
the functioning of the registration system and the child’s right
to get a birth certificate on registration done in time. Moreover,
in the absence of complete registration of births and deaths,
the country is not in a position to get estimates of indicators
like Birth Rate, Death Rate, Infant Mortality Rate, etc. which
are needed to prepare action plans and monitor their implementation
for family planning, reducing Infant Mortality etc. The National
Population Policy has set the target of achieving 100 per cent
registration of births and deaths by 2010.
At a time when
the country is planning to establish a National Population Register,
the unsatisfactory level of registration of births and deaths
in the country is one of the biggest roadblocks to the entire
process. Unless the Population Register is updated on a daily
basis for each of the births and deaths that take place in the
country, the register would become useless very soon. The fact
that about 70,000 births and about 27,000 deaths take place every
day in the country spread across the 6,40,000 villages and 5000
towns and cities makes the task more difficult. But a complete
birth and death registration system is the only way to generate
reliable information on various demographic indicators like Birth
and Death Rates, Infant Mortality Rate, Maternal Mortality Rate,
Sex Ratio at Birth etc. And such data are badly required for formulating
implementing and monitoring of various programmes relating to
health, nutrition, education of children. Therefore, the week-long
campaign assumes significance as it will help the entire planning
process right from village level.
The Minister
of State for Home, Swami Chinmayanand, the Home Secretary, Shri
N. Gopalaswami, the Registrar General, Shri J.K. Banthia were
present at today’s function.
