NRIs seek birth certificates to get parents green cards

Time was when you never needed to register your birth in India. But times have changed so much, you now need to authenticate yourself both in and outside India for a variety of transactions. If you plan to stay in the US and want to secure green cards for yourself and your parents, a birth certificate to authenticate yourself is a must.

Not only are birth certificates being sought by resident Indians for a whole lot of transactions within India, there is an equal demand, if not higher, for the certificates among non-resident Indians (NRIs) particularly from the US to have their parents stay with them. And being an NRI only means that you have to pay higher moolah.

 Two engineers, Raghavan Ramesh and Sumathi Ramesh working for an aero company told Deccan Herald that NRIs need birth certificates as authentication document of being born in India to seek green cards for themselves and their parents.“The 10th standard marks card that is a valid birth and identity certificate in India is not approved in the US. The rule is to show the birth certificate for the green card. In case there is no certificate available, at least a statement from the hospital that the birth certificate is not available has to be provided to the US authorities -- the non-availability certificate - to obtain green card.”

Given that children study, grow up and work in the US, they would eventually want to live there. And typically parents back home would be growing old. The worry about taking care of aging parents crops up. A frequent answer to this dilemma has been to get parents over to the US to reside with them.

“At the time of applying for the green card, which will enable parents to stay for six months in the midst of intermittent trips to India, authorities want you to authenticate yourself that you were truly born in the place you came from and that you are the bonafide children of your parents. Such a certificate can only be issued by the hospital or the corporation body where you were born. This is particularly required of the sponsor of the parents.”

In case you haven’t made one, you’ll have to call officials at the local corporation and the hospital. “This is the point where money comes in. They would cite the payment as fee for their work. We realised they charge in hundreds of rupees for people staying in India, but thousands for people staying abroad. If there are more than three or four steps to be undertaken to get the certificate, officials charge you for each step.

This can range from Rs 10,000 to Rs 25,000. Ideally, payment should be the fee fixed by the government, which is a few hundred rupees. But that isn’t the case for NRI’s,” says Ramesh. The money is to be given by local representatives of the NRI in Indian rupees. The money is collected and after 15 days or so, the certificate is electronically mailed to the local representative who will have to acknowledge reception of the document. This is a well-oiled mechanism in India where certificates are issued at different rates.

Srinath Bairy, engineer who works for a telecom company has experienced the processes necessary for seeking birth certificate. “I would like my parents to be with me. I have to first authenticate myself and authorities asked for birth certificate. I met a few officials who said they would issue the certificate on payment of “fee”. They charged me around Rs 2,000. They told me they had to go through some processes and that the steps taken had costed them a bit. Whatever the truth, it is true now that all NRIs are getting their authentification documents.”

This need for certificates is common to NRIs in the US. There is a rush for green cards every year though the quota varies. Interestingly, even if one turns a citizen of the US, the birth certificate still needs to be furnished. This is the experience of Indian families all over the US.

In 2011, 6,000 green cards were issued, while in 2012, a massive 35,000 green cards were handed out to Indians working and residing in the US. This was more than half of all the green cards issued to various countries. US policy observers say that the surge in demand was due to the heavy need for domain experts and skilled engineering manpower especially in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis.

DR JITHENDRA KUMAR K H,
Medical professional

As per the Registration of Births & Deaths Act, 1969, it is mandatory to register any birth or death in India. It safeguards the social status and hence individual benefit.

V VEENA, RMO,
Govt HSIS Ghosha Hospital

At our hospital, we issue birth certificates within a maximum of 72 hours and there have been no complaints so far. In case there are any mistakes in names, we direct parents to go to the BBMP head office as they deal with that.