BMC BJP corporator demands regular audit of birth registration

Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) corporators on Monday (July 21, 2026) expressed concern over the accumulated delays in correcting or issuing birth certificates due to a crackdown aimed at nabbing fraudsters in fake birth certificate cases. BMC corporators across parties have been demanding a fix in the system.

Several corporators pointed out that the delay in birthday letters is disrupting study abroad plans, visa applications for a large number of residents and problems with documents.

Leader of Opposition in BMC Kishori Pednekar criticized the fact that honest citizens are being made “scapegoats” in the fake birth certificate case. She reacted to the proposal of the BJP company Dr. Neela Somaiya, who demanded a regular audit of the birth registration and issuance process.

He said: “Verification should be made more efficient by finding loopholes in the system and setting up an effective mechanism to prevent misuse of municipal documents.

Concerns over birth certificates have grown in Mumbai after a special investigation team (SIT) was set up to probe about 19,700 birth records issued without the necessary documents. Cases were registered and disciplinary action was also taken against the concerned BMC employees.

Congress corporator Ajanta Yadav said there is a huge rush of citizens at the department offices and corrections in birth records are delayed by six months to a year. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena corporator Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray Ankit Prabhu and Chintaman Niwate demanded the temporary launch of the online facility to clear pending cases in the department immediately,

However, BJP corporator Ganesh Khankar suggested that only ward-level health officers (MHOs) have a backlog of 3,000 OTPs used for verification and certificate issuance.

“Birth and death registration system was shifted from SAP to Civil Registration System (CRS) in 2016. However, registration in CRS started from January 2024 and since then about 90,000 corrections have been made till now,” said BMC Additional Commissioner Vipin Sharma.

“The correction module for birth certificates was only activated in January 2024. Since then, around 90,000 corrections have been made – a volume that underlines how much backlog had accumulated even before the fraud investigation added new friction.

The delay is due to a decision following the fraud to centralize all corrections approvals with the Executive Health Officer (EHO), stripping departmental authorities of the powers they previously held – a move intended to prevent further malpractice but visibly clogging up the system. The BMC has now sent a proposal to the central registrar to restore editing powers at the departmental level.

According to Mr. Sharma, the civic body will also digitize birth records from 1960 and when departmental level authority can be restored so that the affected applicants will not have any immediate relief in sight.

Published – 21 Jul 2026 03:47 IST