The Government has presented a Bill to Parliament to enact the Registration of Deaths Temporary Provisions Act for death certificates to be issued to dependents of persons who had gone missing over the past years during the conflict in the North.

Registrar General Ekanayake M. Gunasekera said yesterday that Minister of Public Administration and Housing W. D. J. Seneviratne had already presented the draft of this Bill to re-enact the Registration of Deaths temporary Provisions Act no 17 of 2005 which expired on June 13, 2008.

The Registrar General said that once that this Bill was enacted the death certificates would be issued through the District Secretariats of Jaffna, Killinochchi, Mullaitivu, Mannar and Vavuniya following an inquiry through the relevant Grama Niladhari of the area.

Questioned on the progress in scanning and computerisation of data regarding Births, Deaths and Marriages, the Registrar General said that all data of persons in the Colombo District had been compiled and any person could obtain a copy from their respective Divisional Secretariat within a short period.

The data in the Districts of Mullaitivu, Killinochchi, Mannar and Vavuniya had been computerised.

Work is in progress in the 60 tsunami affected coastal divisional secretariat areas. This data will be scanned and compiled at Central Record room at Maligawatte, he said.