JULIO DSILVA
julio@herald-goa.com
The Sub-Registrar’s Office at Margao is all set to transfer old records of birth and deaths to the Archives in Panjim ostensibly for recovery of the damaged records and their preservation. The move follows a High Court order.
Apparently some law students filed a petition before the High Court over the dilapidated condition of the records and the court ordered that the records be transferred to Archives following which last week the Sub-Registrar was asked to send the records to Archives.
Birth and Death records up to 1970 will be sent to Archives as they are in a totally damaged condition.
Sub-Registrar Chandrakant Pissurlekar opined that at Archives many of the damaged records will be restored and was confident that after some time the records will be available for those wanting them.
Incidentally due to the rush to seek Portuguese nationality, on an average every day the Sub-Registrar’s office receives anywhere between 50 to 100 applications for the old birth and death certificates as they have to be produced to apply for Portuguese nationality.
The records were maintained on paper and were damaged due to constant handling of them as the staff had to manually turn the pages to trace the record.
