Bill mandates national birth-death database, hides cause of death on certificates

This Bill amends the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 1969 to mandate the creation of national and state-level electronic databases for birth and death records. It also updates rules for who must report births and deaths, how certificates are issued, and the penalties for non-compliance.

The law affects the Registrar General of India, Chief Registrars, Registrars, and Sub-Registrars; medical institutions and practitioners; parents, adoptive parents, and informants of births and deaths; and government authorities managing databases for Aadhaar, electoral rolls, passports, and other services.

• Mandates the Registrar General of India to maintain a national database of registered births and deaths, with obligatory data sharing by Chief Registrars and Registrars.
• Requires Chief Registrars to maintain a unified state-level database using an approved portal.
• Allows the national and state databases to be shared with authorities for Aadhaar, electoral rolls, ration cards, passports, driving licenses, and property registration, subject to government approval.
• Expands the list of persons required to provide information on births to include adoptive parents, single parents, biological parents in surrogacy cases, and staff of adoption agencies or child care institutions.
• Requires medical institutions and practitioners to provide free certificates of cause of death.
• Mandates that birth and death certificates be issued free of charge within seven days of registration, electronically or otherwise.
• Establishes that birth/death certificates serve as proof of date and place of birth for education, government jobs, passports, and Aadhaar, overriding other laws.
• Increases the penalty for failure to register or providing false information from fifty rupees to two hundred and fifty rupees.
• Allows for the appointment of Special Sub-Registrars during disasters or epidemics.

Written from the document by AI, and checked against it. The original below is authoritative.

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