Patna: Authorities in Bihar are planning to employ eunuchs to improve birth registration rate in the state.
The birth registration rate for newborn child is only 36 per cent in Bihar, and the authorities feel engaging the eunuchs who have vast networks could help improve the birth registration figures.
Previously in 2006, the eunuchs had been engaged by the government of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to collect outstanding municipal taxes from defaulters in Patna. The eunuchs traditionally make a living on tips for dancing at wedding or blessing newborn babies.
One of the main reasons why a large section of common people has been reluctant to make birth certificates for their children is the rampant corruption in government offices. Although the state government has initiated many steps to curb corruption, the end result has been far from satisfactory.
"They [eunuchs] have elaborate networks of collecting information about the birth of children in the area.
They reach the families soon after the baby is born. That very quality of the eunuchs could indeed prove handy for us in improving the birth registration rate in the state," Planning and Development Department Secretary Vijay Prakash said yesterday.
Prakash said the government was now planning to use the networks of eunuchs, known in local parlance as ‘hijdas', in encouraging the families to register their newborn babies with the government to enjoy several benefits in future. According to him, the government was also pondering about providing some honorariums to the eunuchs in lieu of their works.
Under part of the plan, officials said, the government will arm them with birth certificate forms and ask them to get them filled up by the family where the baby is born.
Collect details
"They already visit such families to seek money in exchange for giving blessing to the newborns. The only thing they will have to do now is to collect birth details about the newborn baby and get the registration forms filled up then and there," said a Patna Municipal Corporation official.
More than bringing cheers to the families of the newborn, the move has brought happiness to the eunuchs who said it would solve their unemployment problems to some extent. "There is no permanent source of income for us. All we had been doing all these years was to eagerly wait for the auspicious months of wedding to come or get information of any birth in the family."
