Kolkata: Under pressure to digitise lakhs of birth certificates and clear over 22,000 birth certificates waiting to be issued from the KMC headquarters, the civic brass is considering roping in private firms to take care of the digitisation process to expedite the process.According to a KMC source, municipal commissioner Smita Pandey has taken stock of the chaos in the birth certificate wing, especially after repeated malfunctioning of the Janmo-Mrityu portal and the KMC Chatbot. She has thereafter expressed interest in the expertise of the private firms for quick digitisation of birth certificates.This apart, the municipal commissioner has assured that the number of counters at the KMC birth certificate wing would be increased to expedite the processing of documents submitted by the applicants. According to a department source, the number of pending birth certificates was growing at a faster rate because of infrastructure issues and malfunctioning of the state portal. “We have been working overtime to clear the backlog but the skeletal manpower has been a major hindrance. If we get additional manpower and related infrastructure, we can expedite the process,” said a civic official.A visit to the KMC birth certificate wing on Wednesday revealed the extent of the wait for the citizens for a birth certificate. According to Subir Das, a resident of south Kolkata, he had applied in April for a digital copy of the birth certificate of his son for passport renewal. After the passage of six months, Das was on Wednesday told to wait for another 15 days. “There’s a limit to tolerance. I have been patiently waiting for a digital copy of my son’s birth certificate for the past six months. Now I have been told to wait for another 15 days. I don’t know what will happen after expiry of this new deadline,” Das complained.Besides malfunctioning of the Janmo-Mrityu portal, applications through the KMC chatbot are either completely blocked or restricted to a tiny quota of 4–5 a day. According to a KMC source, the birth certificate wing staff need to clear no less than 2,200 birth certificates, with fresh applications pouring in from citizens who need such certificates urgently for school admission or passport renewal.A KMC health department official conceded that the civic headquarters was getting flooded with complaints about unnecessary harassment in the name of documents. “In absence of speedy disposal of birth certificates, touts have taken over. We need to conduct a continuous vigil over functioning of a section of employees to get rid of the toutraj,” conceded a KMC health department senior official.
