Extra KMC staff, counters from today as SIR rush grows
Times of India | 3 December 2025
Kolkata: Hundreds of citizens from across the city and the adjoining neighbourhoods queued up at the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) birth-death certificate wing on Tuesday, long before the scheduled office hours, to apply for birth and death certificates ahead of the SIR hearing.
The civic staff at the inquiry kiosk struggled to listen to applicants who made a beeline for birth and death applications. Cops were called to prevent any untoward incidents.
The KMC personnel at the birth certificate wing were asked to give a patient hearing to applicants and accept applications that would be submitted following all birth and death registration rules. "We met applicants who came from outside the city limits to apply for birth certificates due to ongoing SIR panic. We had to politely refuse them," said a KMC health department official.
According to a senior official of KMC health dept, while they received 360 applications through a chatbot service (including applications received for passport verification), around 50 were accepted manually from applicants who queued up at the KMC headquarters since late morning.
Mayor Firhad Hakim on Friday asked KMC CMHO Ranita Sengupta to ensure that the civic body receives at least 500 birth and death certificate applications daily from next week and processes them as fast as possible. Now, the dept receives 150 applications (through chatbot) daily. However, the KMC birth certificate wing on Monday raised this quota to 240 and agreed to receive birth and death certificates manually after observing a serpentine queue at the headquarters.
According to a KMC birth certificate wing official, the situation will improve from Wednesday after installation of eight more manual counters at the civic headquarters. "We have decided to set up eight makeshift counters to take the workload off the birth certificate wing from Wednesday onwards," said the civic official.
In a bid to receive applications for the issuance of birth and death certificates for applicants who stay in areas under boroughs I to VIII, the KMC will set up the makeshift counters. Applications from boroughs IX to XVI will be received and processed by the employees at the existing counters, said a KMC official. According to a KMC official, the additional birth and death counters will be manned by trained borough employees.