Representative image showing baby feet.
Credit: iStock Photo
Nagpur: A village with a population of 1,500 in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district recorded 27,398 "delayed birth registrations" in just three months, prompting the authorities to launch a probe amid suspicion of a large-scale cyber fraud, officials said on Friday.
The anomaly came to the fore during a vigilance drive by the health department, said a release by the district information officer.
Following a recent order by the Maharashtra government to cancel illegal and delayed birth-death registrations, the department launched a programme to scrutinise records between September and November, said officials.
However, the data captured in the birth-death registration system of Shendursani gram panchayat in Arni taluka stunned them.
The release said over 27,000 delayed births were registered through the system in a span of three months. Considering that the village has a population of just 1,500, the discovery of such a massive number of records was a serious matter, it said.
The District Health Officer and District Registrar (Births-Deaths) were alerted about the findings, and they subsequently informed the Chief Executive Officer of the Yavatmal Zilla Parishad, Mandar Patki, the release said.
Patki formed an inquiry committee and ordered a detailed probe.
The inquiry concluded that 27,397 of 27,398 birth records and seven death records do not belong to the panchayat area and are suspicious, making it impossible for such numbers to have been registered through the gram panchayat, the release said.
The case was then forwarded to the Deputy Director of Health Services, Pune, for technical investigation.
“A state-level login check showed that Shendursani Gram Panchayat’s CRS (Civil Registration System) ID was mapped to Mumbai. It was then sent to the Office of the Additional Registrar General of India and the National Informatics Centre (NIC), Delhi, for further scrutiny,” said the release.
According to a technical investigation report received on December 11, these records fall under the possibility of cyber fraud, it said, adding that a case has been registered at the City police station in Yavatmal.
Meanwhile, the District Health Officer and District Registrar (Births-Deaths) have appealed to all birth-death registrars in Yavatmal not to share their CRS ID, password, or OTP with anyone and to immediately report any suspicious activity.