Bmc Okays A Centralized Record Maintenance Centre Which Will Maintain Such Entries For Speedy Issuance Of Certificates To Citizens
Mumbai : The BMC has sanctioned a centralized record maintenance centre which will maintain birth and death-related entries dating back to even 100 years which will facilitate speedy issuance of these certificates to citizens. To be constructed in a 45,000 sq feet premise of Acworth Leprosy Hospital in Wadala, this new building will be a permanent storage centre of these documents.
In the recently announced BMC annual budget, the civic body has earmarked Rs 3,359 crore for healthcare for the year 2015-16. Among the several public-health proposals, it has also sanctioned this centre to be set-up in Wadala. The civic public health department has entries of birth and death for upto a 100 years and these records are being kept in several ward offices and other civic offices for decades. This means that if a senior citizen wants to apply for a copy of his or her birth certificate, he or she would have to go through several BMC offices to locate the decades-old entry. This also proved to be cumbersome for people who have moved to the suburbs from the island city. This centralization will make sure that when a person applies for a certificate in his local ward office, he or she can get documents quickly. Besides, it will make sure that the existing unutilized space in the hospital is put to good use.
“The proposal has been sanctioned in the civic budget but it still needs to be worked out to the last detail. Once that is done and a tender is floated, I expect construction of the new building to start next year,” said Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive health officer at the BMC. Keskar also asserted that the new building will be isolated from the leprosy hospital and should not impact people.
“I am happy that this centre came along since I was the one who had written to municipal commissioner Sitaram Kunte about it,” informed corporator Anuradha Pednekar.
Tanvi Deshpande
