First day of merger, civic services collapse

Jaipur: The first day of the merger of Jaipur Municipal Corporation Heritage and Greater brought chaos instead of convenience for city's residents. With documentation and online systems being integrated on the official website, people were left stranded outside civic offices on Monday, unable to get birth, death, or marriage certificates or even update Aadhaar cards.Officials said the online integration may take four to five days, during which no new document-related work would be possible. Most citizens were unaware of this.From as early as 9am, people could be seen waiting outside the JMC's Lal Kothi headquarters, carrying files and forms in hand. Many had come from distant areas like Amer, Phulera, Jhalana, and Ghat ki Guni, hoping to apply for or to receive their documents. All of them had to return disappointed.Interestingly, not only parents of newborns but also those aged between 40 and 50 years were seen applying for birth certificates and Aadhaar cards. The reason is the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electroral rolls, under which govt verification and ID proof processes now require these documents."I was born and raised in Jaipur, and never needed a birth certificate before," said Nimish Agarwal, 45, who had come to apply for the document. "Officials came to our area yesterday and told us to keep all documents ready for SIR. But here, they told me to come back after four or five days."Ramswaroop Verma from Phulera, who wanted his father's death certificate, said, "We were told at the hospital to go to the (municipal) corporation, but there is no one to help us here. At least someone should have informed us beforehand."Jaitoon Begum from Amer, who travelled with her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, said, "There's not a single officer or employee to guide us. How many times can old people like us run from one office to another?"Daily wage worker Sanjay Balai, who took a day off, said, "I lose Rs 1,000 for every day I don't work. I came for my child's birth certificate, but they said nothing will happen today. I cannot afford too many leaves."By 1pm, people had become so angry that they began expressing outrage outside the office. Employees arrived later at the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Jan Sahayata Kendra but only distributed pending documents.An employee said, "All records are being integrated online, so the website is under maintenance. Only handovers (of documents) are being done, no new work."However, Vikram Singh, registrar at the Lal Kothi headquarters, maintained, "Our daily operations were running as usual. The staff was here. While new documentation is on hold, over 100 citizens received their pending certificates today."