Help desks open, KMC gets 400 online, 50 offline certificate requests on day 1
Times of India | 4 December 2025
Kolkata: In the wake of an ongoing SIR exercise, KMC on Wednesday set up special help desks at the civic headquarters to expedite the issuance of birth and death certificates. According to a KMC health department official, KMC on Wednesday received around 400 online applications and another 50 applicants submitted their documents manually. The civic official hoped that the number of applications would exceed 500 a day in a week.
The purpose of setting up the help desks, according to a KMC health department official, is to raise the daily quota of birth and death certificate applications through a chatbot (8335999111). Several citizens might need the certificates as proof of their citizenship while appearing in the SIR hearing.
Mayor Firhad Hakim on Friday asked KMC chief municipal health officer (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.
"We have picked up our staff trained in verification of documents and processing birth and death certificates from different borough offices. They have joined our headquarters team and added pace to our special drive. More trained employees are likely to join this team in a few days," said a civic official.
Hakim on Wednesday said sincere efforts were being taken to ensure that no applicants were harassed and returned empty-handed, provided they had genuine documents to support their claims.
A call that Hakim received during the weekly ‘Talk to Mayor' from an Indian Mirror Street resident, complaining about not getting a chatbot application slot despite repeated attempts, prompted him to order the raising of the daily quota for birth and death applications. Hakim assured the KMC health department chief that his department would help her by providing extra manpower to handle the SIR-related rush.