PESHAWAR, Jan 19: The National Steering Committee for Birth Registration has been recommended to introduce certain amendments under the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) Act and the Local Government Ordinance, 2001, to attain the desired level of birth registration ratio, according to official sources.

“Certain amendments have been proposed under both laws to create an integrating effect for achieving higher level of birth registration in the country,” said a well-placed official source.

Amendments, said the sources, were recommended to the national steering committee after studying the Nadra Act and Local Government Ordinance, 2001 to assign a stronger role to the local government institutions to achieve higher birth registration ratio.

The proposal to introduce changes in the two laws has come from the executing agencies of the birth registration pilot project including local government and rural development department, NWFP and Plan Pakistan, a non-governmental organization helping the provincial governments in carrying out the pilot project.

The project, in case of the NWFP, is being executed in four districts including Mardan, Swabi, Nowshera and Abbottabad aiming to attain 80 per cent birth registration ratio against the existing level which ranges between 10 and 20 per cent.

According to sources, this ratio also included a large number of grownups who get themselves registered for getting identity cards, domiciles, and passports etc.

Without sharing the proposed amendments, the official sources said that changes under the Nadra Act and Local Government Ordinance, 2001, would improve the birth registration ratio by integration.

The new birth registration system that would come into force following the introduction of amendments would establish coordination between Nadra and local government institutions.

Under the new system, said the sources, lady health workers would be responsible to report every live birth to the basic health unit concerned which would report the same to the relevant staff of the union council concerned from where the information would be forwarded to the Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) concerned.

The TMA concerned, added the sources, would pass on the information viz-a-viz every live birth [after being informed by the union council] to the district government [district registration office].

Official sources hoped that the proposed measures would considerably improve the birth registration ratio in view of the results attained in the four districts being covered under the pilot project.

Against the prevalent birth registration ratio in the case of the NWFP has gone up to 64 per cent in Mardan, 60 per cent in Swabi, 79 per cent in Nowshera and 75 per cent in Abbottabad - the four districts of NWFP covered under the birth registration project.