KATHMANDU, APRIL 25
Despite the provision for online registration of personal events in place, 151 out of 6,743 wards are yet to provide such service through digital platform due to lack of access to internet connectivity.
The Department of National ID and Civil Registration had introduced the online registration system in 2015 for registration of personal events such as birth, death, marriage, divorce and migration as modernisation of the civil registration process.
A report released by the DoNIDCR informed that the 151 wards had not been able to provide online service as they did not have access to internet facility. "We have been conducting outreach programmes in such wards encouraging the people to register their personal events," it said.
The government had marked the Personal Event Registration Week from April 14-20, calling on people to get the vital events registered with the concerned wards within 35 days of occurrence of such events. Registration of personal events is mandatory for legal identity and receipt of various services and facilities to be provided by the government.
As per the Birth Death and Other Personal Events (registration) Act-1976, vital events such as birth, marriage, divorce, migration and death should be registered with the office of the local registrar within 35 days of such events. However, data shows that many people show no interest in registering personal events due to lack of awareness.
Due to people's reluctance to register such vital events, many have to go through legal hassles when it comes to receiving state services and facilities.
According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the birth certificate is the first identity of a child and it is very important for a country to have 100 per cent record of vital events such as birth and death. Due to lack of such records, many children in the country are facing difficulty getting admission to school and registering their names for various examinations.
People utilise the registration of personal events for obtaining social security allowance, citizenship, relationship certificate, migration to foreign country, property partition and enrolment in school.
As per statistics of the DoNIDCR, the number of children whose births are legally recorded within 35 days of their births is just six per cent in Nepal.
Similarly, 77 per cent children are officially recorded in between 35 days to five years of their births. Birth registration is the right of each child ensured by the Article 39 of the constitution.
It states 'every child shall have the right to name and birth registration along with his or her identity' under the Right of the Child.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 25, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.
