Kolkata: Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has resumed the process of issuing death certificates, revoking a verbal order that suspended the signing authority of sub-registrars, bringing relief to at least 4,000 bereaved families by crematorium figures alone. The state had kept the process of issuing death certificates from crematoriums and burial grounds suspended for 15 days.While giving back signing authority to sub-registrars, KMC on Monday also set up an infrastructure for clearing pending birth certificate applications. However, signing authority has not been given back to contractual sub-registrars. The state govt’s portal for birth and death certificates has been defunct for almost three months and at least 12,000 applications for birth certificates are pending.Without death certificates, bank account settlements, insurance claims and processes for pensions, gratuity, property succession, mutation and several other legal and administrative matters have been on hold for thousands.“According to a new system developed after keeping the services suspended for nearly three months, we have given back the signing authority to sub-registrars. They will process the pending birth certificate applications and forward these to a joint municipal commissioner who has been given the power of an additional registrar. After due checking, a link for the certificate would be sent to the applicant’s phone,” said a KMC health department official.According to an official, the order was revoked following growing public pressure.“A written order from the civic headquarters reached on Monday, giving back the signing authority to permanent civic employees. Thus, the work of issuance of death certificates has resumed. However, in the absence of power given to the contractual sub-registrars, the number of death certificates will be less,” said a civic official.There are seven crematoriums in the KMC area. “Family members will have to now produce the cash receipts that they had been given as proofs of cremation to claim the death certificates that will then be sent to them as a link,” said a civic official.The verbal order, sources said, that had scrapped the signing authority of sub-registrars appears to be linked to the probe into the issuance of birth and death certificates that led to police raids in various civic offices two weeks ago. A team had also visited Keoratala and Nimtala.
