What is birth registration and why does it have to be done?

Birth registration is the official record of a birth, and it is a person’s first legal identity. For a child it is effectively the only identity document, since a national ID comes years later.

In practice it is needed for school admission, for board registration, for a passport application and later for the national ID application itself. One consequence matters especially: the date of birth used at board registration is normally taken from it, and that date then stays on your certificates for life.

Registering late causes difficulty mainly around evidence. Registered near the time, simple proofs like hospital records or a vaccination card are at hand; years later those become hard to produce.

Application, correction, reprint and verification are each separate options on the government portal, and an application’s status can be tracked online after submission. Registering late is still far better than not registering at all, so an unregistered birth is worth dealing with as soon as it comes to light rather than waiting until a school or a passport office forces the issue.

Sources:

• Birth and death registration portal