Vital Registration System In Nepal : A Case Study Of Bharatpur Municipality, Chitwan

Abstract

Records of vital event registration is one of the important source of population information because it provides data on continuous basis. Keeping this importance in mind, Vital Registration System was introduced in Nepal in 2034 BS but yet the registration status can be said no-existence i.e. it is inferior in both quality and quantity. The main objectives of the study were to analyze the extent of people's knowledge about civil events and actual use of knowledge in registering the events and to understand the main barriers of not registering the events as well as to identify the ways of improving Vital Registration System in Nepal based on this small scale study. A well organized semi-structured questionnaire was used as a main tool to obtain required information in order to fulfill the objectives. The main component of this study comprised an interview of 140 households where at least one vital event was occurred during reference period (i.e. from Chaitra2061 BS to Phalgun 2062 BS). Among the selected households (140), there were 149vital events occurred in which 45 were births, 39 were deaths, 44 were marriages and21 cases were migration. Only 11.5 percent of births, slightly greater than 5 percent of deaths, 20.4 percent of marriages and9.5 percent of migration events were registered timely. In contrast to the registration status, people were found to have sound knowledge about registration of vital events. Radio has dominated in procuring information about civil registration to other medias and sources. Similarly, majority of the respondents (36.8%) were found to have knowledge about accurate duration of time for registration. The main reason for not registering the event is no need of registration certificate but the reason differs to events. Only very few persons registered the events only having knowledge (i.e. by legal compulsion). The main cause of registering a birth is need of birth certificate for enrolling children in school, where proof of actual birth date is required, and getting citizenship certificate. The not-registering this event is no need of birth certificate and not having knowledge. Similarly, the main cause of registering the death is to transfer the assets and pension of dead person. Marriages are registered mainly to prove relationship,only if it is necessary and not registering migration is because of lack of knowledge and no need of migration certificate. Therefore, in order to improve Vital Registration System, sufficient information about registration of all vital events should be provided, legal enforcement should be made strong, staffs who are engage is registering these events should be trained, integration and support from other related agencies is required,huge area for need of registration certificates should be created.