Bengal govt shifts Birth, Death Registration Authority from local bodies to officials

The West Bengal government on Friday notified the replacement of gram panchayat pradhans and municipal body chairpersons as registrars of birth and death registrations, transferring the authority to DMs, nodal health department officers and heads of state-run hospitals. 

The notification was issued a day after Chief Secretary Manoj Kumar Agarwal announced that elected representatives in rural and civic bodies will no longer have the authority to issue birth and death certificates.

Agarwal had said on Thursday that henceforth only designated government officials would be authorised to



issue birth and death certificates, removing the power from all elected public representatives, in the wake of widespread discrepancies in the issuance of such documents, with many alleged irregularities surfacing during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. 

"Our government is continuously working to make public administration more transparent, accountable and accessible for every citizen of West Bengal. To further improve public service delivery, we have introduced key structural reforms in the Registration of Births and Deaths across the State," Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said in a post on X.