KARACHI, Feb 21 (APP): The Government of Sindh has completed the province’s first-ever real-time digital birth registrations in major public teaching hospitals in a landmark achievement for public sector reform and digital governance.
Four newborns were digitally registered immediately after birth at Liaquat University of Medical & Health Sciences (LUMHS), Jamshoro, Hyderabad, and Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College Hospital, Sukkur.
The registrations were processed through NADRA’s Birth Notification Tool (BNT), marking the first operational milestone under Sindh’s reformed Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) framework and setting a new benchmark for integrated, technology-driven public service delivery in the province, a communique said.
This landmark achievement forms part of the CRVS Pilot Project launched in July 2025 with technical support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The initiative reflects Sindh’s strategic commitment to ensuring universal legal identity, strengthening public service delivery, and modernizing governance systems through
digital integration.
The real-time digital birth registration system has been operationalized under a trilateral agreement between the Health Department, Government of Sindh, the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), and the Local Government & Housing Town Planning Department.
The agreement establishes a structured institutional framework to integrate civil registration directly within health facilities, enabling immediate, secure, and paperless registration of births at the point of occurrence. By digitizing birth notifications at source, the reform significantly reduces delays, eliminates manual errors, enhances transparency, and strengthens data integrity for evidence-based planning.
It also safeguards every child’s right to legal identity from birth, reinforcing the province’s commitment to inclusive governance.
Under the vision of Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and on the directives of Chief Minister Sindh, Syed Murad Ali Shah, the CRVS Task Force Sindh was constituted to steer the implementation of the reform initiative. The Task Force was formally notified in June 2025 under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Sindh. It is overseeing phased implementation under the Sindh CRVS Scale-Up Plan as part of broader public sector digitization and governance reforms.
The pilot phase was launched in Hyderabad and Matiari districts in July 2025, where human resources from 36 public sector health facilities were trained to operationalize the system. The first integrated real-time digital birth registration under the reformed CRVS framework was recorded at Sindh Government Hospital, Qasimabad, Hyderabad, paving the way for provincial expansion.
In the first phase of formal rollout, 14 tertiary care hospitals have been electronically linked with NADRA. Among these institutions, Liaquat University Hospital and Ghulam Mohammad Mahar Medical College Hospital have now successfully recorded real-time digital birth notifications, demonstrating the system’s operational readiness.
The second phase will extend the system to 19 major hospitals, 16 District Headquarters Hospitals, and 53 Tehsil Headquarters Hospitals, followed by Rural Health Centres, Basic Health Units, and Maternal and Child Health Centres.
The Government of Sindh aims to achieve 95 percent birth registration coverage by 2028, with the ultimate
vision of 100 percent digital registration across all public and private health facilities in the province.
The initiative is a foundational reform that aligns health services, local government structures, and national identity management systems into a unified, technology-driven governance framework. He further emphasized that the Government of Sindh has formally approved dedicated funds to support the implementation and scale-up of the CRVS digital registration system across the province, ensuring it’s sustainablity and long-term institutionalization.
The successful real-time digital registration of the first four newborns represents not only a technological advancement but also a transformative step towards universal legal identity, improved demographic data accuracy, and strengthened public sector service delivery across Sindh.