We remain cautiously optimistic about the LGRD minister's assurance that the birth registration process would be made simpler and harassment-free. Md Tazul Islam recently told the media that action will be taken against those harassing the applicants who are trying to make or correct their birth registration certificates. We can only hope that he delivers on his promises.

Since the government made online birth registration mandatory for all citizens from January last year—to avail 18 citizen services, including enrolment in educational institutions, registration for secondary school certificate exams, applying for a passport, and driving license—people have been subjected to unbearable sufferings. They have had to deal with numerous difficulties while filling out the forms online as well as face harassment at the relevant government offices where they have to go in person to submit the forms or correct the errors.

According to our reports, applicants who submit the application following due process and without seeking any assistance from the brokers do not get their certificates on time. Thus, in order to avoid further harassment, people are paying the brokers Tk 500 to Tk 1,000 to get the certificates.

Strangely, the government also asked those who previously had a 16-digit birth certificate to apply for new ones as the government is now issuing all the citizens a 17-digit birth certificate. The result is, unbelievable pressure was put on the Office of the Registrar General, Birth and Death Registration (ORGBDR). As of February 10, 2022, the number of pending applications was 17,86,0094. Every day, they are receiving 100,000 new applications, which means there is always a huge backlog. Taking advantage of the situation, brokers are exploiting the applicants and making some easy money.

What this all means is that the digitisation of the application process is not truly efficient and the government has actually forced the citizens to go through this without properly preparing the service delivery system. Experts believe that this huge backlog in delivering certificates and other problems, such as correcting the information errors, could be easily solved by using better and more efficient technology. Could the government not have easily updated the 16-digit certificates to 17-digit ones, instead of wasting so much time and energy to manually update things?

We urge the government to make the digital birth registration process easier, faster and harassment-free. We appreciate the LGRD minister's assurance to stop harassment of the applicants, but it means little without concrete actions by the relevant authorities to stop rampant corruption. The entire process needs to be re-evaluated so that it is people-friendly, as digitised procedures are supposed to be.