Birth registration opens the door for a newborn child to enter into a permanent identity and death registration relives one from all such records. A birth certificate is considered a ticket to citizenship, without which an individual does not officially exist and therefore lacks legal access to the privileges and protection of a national. On the other hand, a death certificate is a mandatory proof for relieving a person from the entire social, legal and financial obligation.

A birth certificate as a government document supports an individual to enjoy the rights and protection of the nation. While a death certificate supports his family members on enjoying the property rights and schemes like policy benefits and other entitled privileges. In a nutshell, a birth certificate is a supportive document for the survival of an individual and a death certificate is a document to serve his family members.

The registration of birth not only provides acknowledgment but also gives legal status to one's existence. It opens the door for accessing other fundamental rights including education, health care and protection. Apart from the proof of identity and entitlement for different services, birth registration to a larger extent helps the government to determine some important basic concerns like doses of immunization vaccine to be supplied, educational and other childcare facilities to be provided in the country. The registration of death is also important for the government to analyse the life expectancy, population of the country and other information related to the services to be provided. A poor registration system can lead to the poor calculation of birth and death rate. Indeed an effective birth and death registration system is elementary to the sensible operation of polity in the new era of local self-governance.

Importance of Birth Registration:

Birth registration provides legal proof for identity, civil status, age, dependency status in the family and a wide variety of rights for an individual. Registration of birth and the issuing of birth certificate are interlinked events.
Registration of birth is very important for obtaining the birth certificate. The RBD act clearly specifies that the registrars in the local bodies are required to issue the birth certificate free of charge, on births reported with in 21 days of occurrence.
The birth certificate is significant for an individual for personal identification and protection as indicated in the table.

Importance of Death Registration:

Proof of death is important for relieving an individual from legal, social and financial obligations. It will be essential for his family members to enjoy the inheritance of property and closing the statutory obligations.
Death certificate is crucial in proving the “circumstances of death” in the case of accident, murder and also on availing the benefits of Life Insurance Corporation and other financial schemes.
The death certificate is mandatory for availing benefits like dying in harness, family pension and on relieving a person from the muster roll.

Issuing Of Certificate

The registrar designated as per the RBD act is entitled to issue the certificate for birth, death and stillbirth. In ULBs, usually the Commissioner /Health officer is designated to issue birth and death certificate. The individual who is looking for the certificate has to go directly to the respective municipality, if it is registered within the said time. The RBD Act recommends the issue of the certificate free of charge.
However, municipalities are charging an amount of Rs.10 to 20/- for the certificate as cost of lamination of certificate.
The key issue on the birth and death registration system is that the majority of citizens have not collected their birth/death certificate, even though the occurrence of it are registered by the informant.
Stillbirth means foetal death, where a product of conception has attained at least the prescribed period of gestation.
According to U.P. Nagar PALIKA PARISHAD Act 1959, Nagar PALIKA PARISHAD has been handed over the responsibility to avail certain public services to the citizens. As per the 74 th ammmendment, there has been a considerable increase in the responsibilities of the local bodies.