The National Birth and Death Registration Day was observed in Rajshahi with the call for bringing all the birth and death cases under registration within the stipulated time.
Marking the day, divisional and district administrations jointly organized a discussion meeting at the conference hall of Deputy Commissioner (DC) highlighting the significance of the day on Friday.
Earlier, the day was opened formally through releasing balloons and festoons in the sky.
Commissioner of Rajshahi division Dr Dewan Muhammad Humayun Kabir and Divisional Director of Local Government Division Jasim Uddin Haider addressed the meeting as chief and special guests respectively with DC Shamim Ahmed in the chair.
Deputy Directors of Local Government Division Ashraful Islam and Shahana Akhter Jahan, Additional District Magistrate Sabiha Sultana and Additional DCs Kolyan Chowdhury, Asim Kumar, Joya Maria Perera and Anisul Islam also spoke on the occasion.
In his remarks, Commissioner Dr Humayun Kabir said the Rajshahi division has attained significant success in the field of birth and death registration during the last two consecutive years.
He said the present government has made the birth registration within 45 days of baby borne, while death registration within 45 days of any death mandatory and the message has been reached to everyone on priority basis as no basic public service will be available without birth registration.
Welcoming the government decision, a divisional level birth-death registration taskforce has been formed.
Commissioner Dr Kabir said seven districts of total eight ones in the division remained in the ten top-listed districts of the country and Pabna district has clinched the top and second positions in the divisional and national level respectively.
The success has been attained with the collective efforts of district administration, upazila nirbahi office and local government sections.
He opined that wide-ranging mass-awareness about the importance of birth and death registration can be the best way of achieving sustainable development goals in this field.
Birth and death registration of all citizens of the country has become an urgent need for formulating a flawless database in near future.
He also said many people suffer a lot due to errors in birth registration. So, birth registration must be prepared with correct and similar information in all personal documents.
“We are now in the list of developing countries. For further development, more progress is needed in the process of birth and death registration,” he added. (BSS)