No computerised birth and death certificates in any of the PMC's 14 ward offices after main server crashes

A matter of life & death at the PMC

No computerised birth and death certificates in any of the PMC's 14 ward offices after main server crashes

Hadapsar-resident Ramchandra Gaund's (55) family members are yet to come to terms with his untimely death. His wife Rukhmini, has had to rush from pillar to post to get his death certificate for the last 15 days, which has only added to her woes.u00a0

Rukhmini is among 400 other citizens who await death certificates of their near and dear ones since the PMC's computerized birth and death registration system crashed.

"I could have easily obtained a copy of the death certificate from the PMC's Hadapsar office but have no option but to do the rounds of their Kasba Peth office. This is extremely traumatic for me," said Rukhmini.

Server stalls
After the server installed at the PMC's Kasaba Peth ward office supports the death and birth registration system of all 14 ward offices, hand-written certificates are being issued from the Kasba Peth ward office.

Long queues have been the norm at the Kasba Peth office from 10.30 am to 2 pm for the last seven days.

"Over 4,000 citizens have applied for acquire birth and death certificates at the Kasba Peth office. Our system is overloaded and we are extremely stressed," said a senior PMC office. "We are now making appeals to all 13 ward offices in the city that they should stop sending people to Kasba Peth and issue certificates in their respective wards," said the officer.

All is well
V S Jadhavrao, Head, Statistics and IT Department, PMC, however, claimed the system was fine. "The server is working. Citizens are getting their birth and death certificates in all the 14 ward offices. The only problem is that we had to issue some handwritten certificates, as the system is a little slow," Jadhavrao said.

Dr D B Pardeshi, assistant health officer, Birth-Death Certificate Division, PMC, however, agreed that the server has not been functioning for some time. "The entire load is on the Kasba Peth office at this point in time. We will streamline the server system at the earliest," he assured.