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Authentication of Birth Certificate by SDM

Reported on February 21, 2011 from New Delhi , Delhi  ι Report #28366

Our daughter was born in Delhi a few weeks back, and since we are foreigners we need to get her birth certificate authenticated first by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) of our area, and then by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) before my Embassy would recognize the birth certificate as valid and issue her a passport.

Thus more than 4 weeks back we asked someone who claimed to have good connections to the SDM of that area to get the birth certificate authenticated. That person went there basically every day returning with the same story: the old Commissioner has left and the new one has not been appointed yet, thus there is no-one who would sign the birth certificate. The person who is supposed to act as interim commissioner is the commissioner from another area. But he refuses to come to the office in our area in order to sign the document, and also refuses to sign the document in his own office in the other area. This goes on for 3 weeks and is really Kafkaesk. No-one seems to be responsible or have the signing authority!

Finally we make an appeal to another aquaintaince who grew up in the area. He then manages to mobilize a police constable from the area to accompany my husband to the SDM office. He also manages to get some officer's mobile phone number who would have the authority to sign the document. Thus we could make an appointment with that person, and my husband went there the next day with the police officer.

It still takes a few hours, though: The stamp is given in one office, the person signing it sits in a different location in the same area. Thus once they get the stamp (2Rs stamp fee), yet another officer joins my husband and the police constable to drive to the other office for the signature. There the guy indeed signs the document, but only after the group returns back to the first office again to get the stamp on the back side of the document rather than the front side (another 2Rs stamp

After driving the police constable back to his office my husband pays a short visit to our acquiantance who helped us out with the contacs. Our acquaintance then lets us know that the police officer had to pay two times 500 Rs to some people at those offices in order to speed up things. We never got to know to whom exactly he paid the money, or if he pocketed it himself. And we honestly did not want to know because we were just so glad to have got the stamp and signature after almost 4 weeks running around.

One last remark: When he drove the constable back my husband said that now finally the constable could go back to his duties. Whereupon the constable replied that no, there were some more tasks to be solved... Which left us wonderning what the real duties of police are.
And also how an "ordinary" person who has no connections at all manages to get "things done" with the city authorities....?!

What is your reaction after reading this report?