Introduction

The enactment of the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, 1969 has made the Registration of Births, Deaths and Still Births compulsory all over the country. It has provided statutory authority at the centre and state levels. At the center, the Registrar General, India appointed by the Central Government under the Act coordinates and unifies the activities of the state Governments on the matter of Registration of Births & Deaths and submits to the central Government an annual Report on working of this Act. Chief Registrars appointed under the Act are the executive authority and responsible for the entire work of registration and compilation of statistical reports in the States. To carry out the provision of the Act, the Registrar general India, in consultation with the Union Law Ministry, brought out the model Rules in 1970 providing the forms and procedures to be adopted for the registration. That system of registration involved a lot of paper work at the registrars level and thus had affected the transmission of statistical returns from Registrars to the state headquarters. The forms and procedures of Registration have been revamped with a view to reduce the paper work of the Registrars, quicken the transmission of Data/records and make the system suitable for use of modern technology. In this system, the forms have been redesigned by segregating the legal items from the statistical items and by adding some new relevant items. The legal part of the reporting forms will from a part of the respective registrars and the statistical part need to be transmitted to the state headquarters for statistical compilation. Consequently the kerala Registration of Births & Deaths Rules 1970 have also been revised and the Kerala Registration of Births & Deaths Rules 1999 have been brought out (Annex-II). The revamped system of registration has been implemented uniformly through out the country

The various forms used in the revamped system of registration are:

Form No.1 - Birth Report Form
Form No.2 - Death Report Form
Form No.3 - Still Birth Report Form
Form No.4 & 4A - Medical Certificate of Causes of Death
Form No.5 - Birth certificate
Form No.6 - Death certificate
Form No.7 - Birth Register
Form No.8 - Death Register
Form No.9 - Still Birth Register
Form No.10 - Non-availability certificate
Form No.11 - Summary Monthly Report of Birth
Form No.12 - Summary Monthly Report of Deaths
Form No.13 - Summary Monthly Report of Still birth

Format of these forms are prescribed as part of the Model Rules1999 (Annex-II)