New Delhi, Oct 13 As the NDMC digitises its birth and death records, the yellowing pages and fading ink of physical record books, some dating back nearly a century, remain a link to the city’s history.
Records of former prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi, and even ex-Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf are present in the heavy, bound registers that contain many handwritten entries.
The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) on Wednesday launched an end-to-end online and paperless system for the recordkeeping process.
The old registers, some dating back to 1931, offer a glimpse into the city’s past, documenting the births and deaths of ordinary residents as well as prominent personalities.
Their pages contain handwritten accounts in cursive of lives that began and ended in the New Delhi area, preserved over the decades in the civic body’s archives.
The records contain entries related to Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Sanjay Gandhi. The documents, which include handwritten reports, hospital records and official signatures, reflect a time when registration depended on physical paperwork and manually maintained ledgers.
Officials said that the archives have also helped establish details of the early life of former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf who was born in Delhi in 1943.
When he visited India as the Pakistani president in 2005, the NDMC traced his birth certificate and handed it over to Musharraf, already a senior citizen at the time. He and his siblings were born at Lala Girdharilal Maternity Hospital in Kamala Market.
For decades, locating or updating such records meant searching physical registers and visiting municipal offices. With its new online system, launched by NDMC Chairman Manoj Kumar Dwivedi last week, the civic body aims to make the process simpler for residents.
Officials said the new portal offers end-to-end birth and death certificates, along with pet registration services.
They said that with a citizen-centric approach and newly launched services, hospitals will now send birth and death information directly to the NDMC electronically, replacing the need to submit physical documents.
“Citizens can also apply online to correct details in existing certificates, add a child’s name, register home births and deaths, and seek delayed registration,” they added.
The system is designed to reduce paperwork, waiting time and processing delays while making registration services more accessible and transparent.
As the council moves towards digital recordkeeping, its old registers and its handwritten entries will now be history.
(PTI News)
