Health dept struggles to issue death, birth certificates on time

6,600 APPLICATIONS PENDING IN AMRITSAR, OFFICIALS BLAME IT ON LACK OF TRAINING AMONG OFFICIALS

AMRITSAR:EVER since the state government decided to provide citizen-centric services related to health through its online portal— Punjab e-sewa, the staff of health and family welfare department in Amritsar is struggling to issue death and birth certificates in the specified time of one month .

The government had claimed to provide better health-related services through online system from August 1, but as per official records, the district had 6,600 pending applications and a pendency rate of 10.3% as on December 3, which is highest among all districts in Punjab.

As per the government, citizens no longer need to wait in queues at offices but people are not getting certificates on time. “My son died in August this year and I had applied for his death certificate at Sewa Kendra in the same month. I haven’t got the certificate so far,” said Micheal Wilson, a resident of Ranjit Avenue.

“Out of the total pending applications at health department, over 1,600 relating to birth and death certificates are pending with municipal corporation (MC). We don’t have adequate computer systems and operators have not been given proper training to work on the portal” said Dharminder Singh, MC superintendent.

Civil surgeon Dr Prabhdeep Kaur Johal said, “The change to online system is the main reason that people are not getting certificates on time. The operators have not been given training. We are working extra hours to finish the pending applications.”

Rajat Sharda, district e-governance coordinator, said, “We are looking for new computer systems and operators to use e-sewa portal.”