COIMBATORE: In a significant move, the Coimbatore city Corporation has decided to provide cash to the applicants and relatives who have applied for birth and death certificates, if the local body fails to issue these certificates within 15 days of application. The civic body has decided to implement this to ensure that civic services reach the public at the earliest under the Smart Cities project.
Coimbatore Corporation is one among the cities in the country, where the Union Government’s ‘Smart City’ project is to be implemented under which the city will get holistic development along with Chennai Corporation, in the first phase. The civic body is likely to improve its works in each department to meet criteria in Smart City project.
The health department staff of the city Corporation will hand over birth and death certificates within 15 days if the applications are submitted with necessary documents. “We will hand over `10 to each applicant per day if we are not able to issue birth and death certificates to them before deadline,” said a senior official from the Corporation.
However, city health officer A Santhosh Kumar said that they issue the certificates within a couple of days of application. “Issuance of these certificates get delayed only when the applicants fail to attach necessary documents,” he said.
According to sources, the service is expected to be launched soon after getting a nod from the city Corporation’s council meeting, which is scheduled on July 27.
The Coimbatore Corporation had introduced online system to issue birth and death certificates in May 2013. Those who are born between 1981 and 2011 can get the records by clicking the Corporation website. Similarly, relatives of the deceased can get death certificates using the same method.
Apart from handing over birth and death certificates to the applicants and relatives in person, the civic body also sends these certificates by post to avoid middle-man intervention, from July 2014.