Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Unified Database of Birth and Death

Mains level: Not Much

The Centre has proposed amendments to a 1969 law that will enable it to “maintain the database of registered birth and deaths at the national level”.

The registration of births, deaths and stillbirths are compulsory under the provisions of RBD Act in all parts of the Country.
The normal period of 21 days (from the date of occurrence) has been prescribed for reporting the birth, death and stillbirth events.

The database may be used to update the Population Register and the electoral register, and Aadhaar, ration card, passport and driving licence databases after the amendment.
Presently, the registration of births and deaths is done by the local registrar appointed by States.

Ans. Unified Database of Birth and Death

It is proposed that the Chief Registrar (appointed by the States) would maintain a unified database at the State level.
It would then integrate it with the data at the “national level,” maintained by the Registrar General of India (RGI).
The amendments will imply that the Centre will be a parallel repository of data.

Population Register prepared under the Citizenship Act, 1955;
Electoral registers or electoral rolls prepared under the Representation of the People Act, 1951
Aadhaar database prepared under the Aadhaar Act, 2016;
Ration card database prepared under the National Food Security Act, 2013;
Passport database prepared under the Passport Act; and
Driving licence database under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, and
Other databases at the national level are subject to provisons of Section 17 (1) of the RBD Act, 1969