Chennai

Parents in the city are in a fix, as the Greater Chennai Corporation’s webpage for including their children’s names in birth certificates has remained unresponsive for several days.

Soon after babies are born, the hospitals would give details of the parents and birth registration number to the civic body, which would in turn generate and upload the birth certificates without names. But because of the glitch, parents are now forced to approach zonal offices to include the child’s name in the certificate.

“Soon after my daughter was born three years ago, I got a job transfer to another State and missed including her name in her birth certificate generated online by the Chennai Corporation. Now, I am planning to admit her into a school. But the schools are insisting to include her name in the birth certificate,” Prabhakaran, a private employee said.

Prabhakaran has been trying to apply online for name inclusion for more than 10 days but the Corporation web portal prevented him from sending the application and required documents. Prabhakaran is not alone in this ordeal. G Jagan, another parent in the city, faced a similar issue, as he could not include the name of his infant son.

When DT Next checked the Corporation’s official website, the birth certificate portal was not able to generate birth certificates for several months.

When asked, a Corporation official admitted that the online portal was not working for a few days and directed the parents to visit respective zonal offices to apply for name inclusion.

“There is a glitch in the portal. The department concerned is working on resolving the issue. Until the website is repaired, parents should visit the zonal offices where they can include the names,” he added.

A sanitary inspector responsible for issuing the birth certificates said birth and death registration was a routine work, which is continuing. “There was a delay during the peak of COVID-19. Now, as the cases are coming down, we are doing routine work, including issuance of birth certificates,” he said. Before the online system was introduced, parents had to visit zonal offices to include the names in the birth certificates despite there being a provision to download birth certificates from the website.

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