Sambalpur: Fate of over 25 kids in this district has been pushed to uncertainty after the Sambalpur Municipal Corporation (SMC) denied them birth certificates as the hospital where they were born allegedly lacked the record of their births. Meanwhile, two years have passed since the birth of these kids but their parents have failed to get a birth certificate for them because the hospital established by the Rotary Club at Dhanupali has failed to put forward the birth slip or provisional certificate to the birth and death registration section of SMC.
Consequently, the parents have failed to enrol the names of their kids in any government scheme and are losing out on the benefits. The parents apprehend whether they will be able to admit their children to a school in coming days in the absence of a birth certificate. As per norms, a hospital or private nursing home has to forward the birth slip or provisional certificate of every child to the birth and death registration section of the local civic body within 21 days of birth. Based on these inputs, the office provides the birth certificate of the child after receiving an application from the concerned parents. However, parents have to undergo undue suffering if the hospital provides wrong inputs in the birth slip or makes an inordinate delay in providing the details. The hospital established by the Rotary Club at Dhanupali has committed the blunder in failing to maintain the records of more than 25 babies born in the hospital and provide the details to SMC.
According to the worried parents, while applying for birth certificates in SMC’s birth and death registration section, they were informed that the civic body has no information regarding the birth of their kid on a particular date in the concerned hospital. As a result, their applications were automatically rejected. Raja Sahu of Saraswat Colony and Bishikesan Sahu of Mudipara in the western Odisha town alleged that they have failed to get any benefit of various government schemes due to a lack of the birth certificate of their children. Dr Ashok Singh, who is in charge of the Rotary Hospital at Dhanupali, said that after construction of the health facility, its management was handed over to a private hospital.
However, the private hospital failed to maintain a proper record of the births in the hospital, he said adding that they have hired a legal expert to resolve the problem and will be providing the birth slips of the children very soon. Health officer Dr Mahendra Nanda of SMC said that the Rotary Hospital was not registered in 2022. Therefore, the details of the children born in the hospital cannot be accepted as proof of their birth, which is why the applications for birth certificate have been rejected, he added.