Jamshedpur tops fake birth certificates� list, civic bodies under scanner

Jamshedpur : Cases of fake birth certificates used for official purpose are increasing in Jamshedpur with several cases registered in the police department in last three months. Officials said concerned government functionaries are detecting fake birth certificates and cases are registered forthwith.

Increase in the crime has alarmed government functionaries and some are issuing public circulars in local newspapers to prevent the departments from accepting fake certificates.

�It is for the information of general public, government, semi-government, private and other institutions of the city that some unscrupulous elements are getting fraud birth certificates prepared by scanning some old certificates and making changes to the same,� said an official.

The issue of fake birth certificates came to limelight once again by the Regional Passport office (RPO), most of the birth certificates attached with the applications seeking passports coming from Jamshedpur have been found fake during the verification process.

Jamshedpur Notified Area Committee informed the RPO that out of 124 certificates sent for verification, 101 had not been issued by them.

Sources went on to inform that East Singhbum, is the only district of Jharkhand from where maximum number of applications are received followed by Hazaribagh, Bokaro and Giridih. On an average, one lakh applications per year are received from the across the State.

Touts are running a racket issuing bogus documents. The problem is most of these certificates are fakes, posing serious questions about security since the document is required for obtaining passports, in legal proceedings, securing citizenship of a country etc. It is also a must for admission to a school. Under normal circumstances, a birth certificate is issued gratis within 21 days of birth. Beyond that, the certificate has to be obtained for a fee after due diligence is carried out by the block and corporation authorities.

The Birth and Death Certification Department always hogs the limelight for wrong reasons. No points for guessing that the forged birth certificates are sought to facilitate admissions in educational institutions and death certificates are obtained to gain financially through property, etc.

It has been reliably learnt that there is a nexus and there are middlemen who act as conduits between the beneficiary and the department employees to facilitate the forged certificates. They charge hefty amount for their services. Insiders said the kickbacks between Rs 1,000 to Rs 50,000 was a common practice to get a hand on either of these forged certificates.

Similarly, many preventive steps were announced to be taken to make the certificate-issuing process transparent, like establishing direct contact with the applicants through the SMS service, but it, too, could not see the light of the day.