BMC Corporators Demand Reforms as Birth Certificate Crackdown Causes Major Delays
On Monday, July 21, 2026, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) corporators in Mumbai demanded systemic reforms and a regular audit to resolve severe delays in issuing and correcting birth certificates. The delays, which now stretch from six months to a year, were triggered by a major crackdown on fake registrations and a subsequent decision to centralise the approval process.
The ongoing delays have heavily impacted Mumbai residents, disrupting study-abroad plans and visa applications. The backlog intensified after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) began investigating approximately 19,700 undocumented birth records, which has already led to disciplinary action against several BMC employees.
During a BMC meeting, opposition leader Kishori Pednekar criticised the administration, stating that honest citizens are being made "scapegoats" in the fake birth certificate crackdown. Her comments came in response to BJP corporator Dr. Neel Somaiya, who demanded a regular audit of the birth registration and issuance process to find loopholes and prevent the misuse of municipal documents.
Congress corporator Ajanta Yadav highlighted that ward offices are facing a massive rush of citizens due to the correction delays. To ease the backlog, Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) Shiv Sena corporator Ankit Prabhu and Chintaman Niwate urged the administration to temporarily restart online correction facilities. Additionally, BJP corporator Ganesh Khankar noted that ward-level Medical Health Officers (MHOs) have around 3,000 pending One-Time Passwords (OTPs) used for verification.
Addressing the corporators, BMC Additional Commissioner Vipin Sharma explained that the birth and death registration system shifted from the SAP system to the Civil Registration System (CRS) in 2016, though active CRS registration only began in January 2024. Since the correction module was activated that month, roughly 90,000 corrections have been processed.
Sharma explained that the current delays stem from a post-scam decision to centralise all correction approvals under the Executive Health Officer (EHO), stripping individual ward offices of their previous authority. To resolve this, the BMC has sent a proposal to the Central Registrar to restore ward-level editing powers. The civic body is also digitising birth records dating back to 1960, though no immediate timeline was given for when ward-level authority might be restored.
