ISLAMABAD, Aug 10: The fees for birth, death and marriage certificates in Rawalpindi district would go up by 900 per cent after the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and Rawalpindi city district government agreed to computerise the documents.

Under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on Thursday, the applicants for birth, death and marriage certificate would have to pay Rs100 against the present fee of Rs10 for each document issued with the logo of Nadra.

However, a member of the Union Council Pindora (No-18), Raja Ibrar Hussain Abbasi claimed that under the agreement 60 per cent of the fee would go to Nadra depriving the financially weak UCs of their major source of income.

He said over 500 union councils in the district would have to pay millions of rupees to Nadra only for having its logo on the certificates to be issued by the UCs.

He said he had also tabled a resolution in the district council against the agreement and sent a copy of the resolution to Chief Minister Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and other departments concerned.

He said out of the Rs100 fee for each computerised birth, death and marriage certificate, Rs60 would go to Nadra, Rs30 to the union council concerned and Rs10 to the secretary of the UC. “Our main concern is that the amount to be given to Nadra should also go to the union councils, so that they could spent it on development works,” he said.

Nadra’s general manager for Islamabad, northern region and Kashmir, Col (retired) Zahid Iqbal said in a joint press conference with the District Nazim Rawalpindi Raja Javed Ikhlas that 15 union councils had started issuing computerised certificates as a pilot project.

When contacted, District Coordination Officer Rawalpindi Irfan Elahi said the adoption of computerised system was solely a prerogative of the UCs. However, he did not clarify if it was the prerogative of the union councils why the district government had signed the MoU with Nadra.

He said issuance of computerised birth, death and marriage certificates had already been started in Lahore and Chakwal districts.

The DCO said earlier the fee of each certificate was Rs10 and it would go up to Rs100. “Earlier union councils were receiving only Rs10 and now they would get Rs30 out of the Rs100 fee. In this way their revenue generation will also go up,” he said.