More than 500,000 newborns have so far been registered through the Sindh Digital Birth Registration project in the province, Local Government Secretary Roshan Ali Shaikh said on Wednesday. The DBR project is a joint venture of the Sindh government and UNICEF which was initiated in 2017. It was initially launched in Thatta district and later expanded to Badin, Noshero Feroz and Karachi. The basic idea behind the project is to ease the process of getting every newborn in Sindh registered. “The DBR has proved to be a success in Sindh as we can now easily get the child registered with NADRA,” Shaikh said in a statement. It is helping the government collect data of newborns, while helping parents get their child registered easily, he said. The process costs parents just Rs200 and there is no chance of corruption or issuance of a fake certificate in it. The Sindh LG secretary said the DBR is also working to set up its desks at various hospitals. “DBR desks have been established in Sobhraj Hospital in Karachi’s District South, Jannat Gul and Lasi Goth hospitals in East and also in Sindh Government Hospital in Korangi,” he said. “We want to expand it all over the province.” The Sindh government believes in facilitating people and ensuring transparency is its top priority, according to Shaikh. He said the government is also planning to launch DBR mobile units for home service during the coronavirus pandemic.
