BHUBANESWAR: With the e-municipality portal (ulbodisha.gov.in) remaining suspended for more than a week now, people are facing difficulties in applying for and obtaining death and birth certificates.
These essential documents are required for all official purposes, including appointing of legal heirs, claiming insurance, during school and college admissions, for claiming benefits, foreign travel, applying for passports and so on.
The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) is the issuing agency for the capital city. It downloads the applications received in the portal and the health officer concerned for the respective city puts his signatures on these before uploading the same in the digital format.
People have been complaining of neither being able to apply for the certificates nor being able to download the signed ones. Every time they go to the web portal, it says maintenance work is on. Since the online mode is the only way for the people to apply for and get the certificates, many have had to cancel their urgent works in the absence of the service. Hundreds of applications are pending.
“I have been trying to apply for the death certificate of my brother, who died of Covid recently. But each time I access it, a message pops up showing maintenance work is on. I see no logic behind keeping such an essential service suspended for so long,” Pritam Biswal, a resident of Bhubaneswar, said.
The ulbodisha.gov.in portal is meant for all the civic bodies and people living in those areas across the state can apply for the death and birth certificates here. “The web portal is maintained by a private company and it is under maintenance now. But it will be ready soon,” city health officer (BMC) B K Mishra said.
