According to Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s birth-death record, everyone’s a Hindu
The concept of one nation — one religion has no place in any democratic country. However, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) feels otherwise as according to the birth-death record department, every person is Hindu.
This blunder came to light when one Habibur Rehman Mew — a resident of Vatva — visited the civic body’s birth-death department to get his son’s birth certificate. Upon receiving the certificate, he was shocked as the religion mentioned in the civic body’s record read Hindu.
A resident of Saijpur Bogha, who is a Christian, faced the same problem. This could have been counted as a one-off incident. But further digging revealed that the civic body does not have any other option for any religion other than Hinduism. Hence, people might belong to any religion, but for the record, they would be considered Hindus.
“I was shocked to see my religion as Hindu on the certificate. The more shocking part is that when I inquired about the matter, the employees on duty said there is no other option in the religion section,” said Mew.
He said the employees did point out the error to superior officials, but it was not rectified. “AMC has won several awards for its e-governance projects. But now, it cannot solve a small issue that can hurt religious sentiments of the people,” said Mew.
One being asked about the matter, AMC officials defended it as a technical error. “The information about religion is not in public. It is only in the software meant for the department. This information is not printed on birth or death certificate. So, nothing goes wrong in the certificate,” said Bhavin Solanki, in-charge medical officer of AMC’s health department.
He added the option was not to be included in the software. But now, they will ask the e-governance department to remove the option. Moreover, there are many more other options such as age and education of the parents, which is not being used anymore.
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