The Calcutta Municipal Corporation has resumed issuing birth and death certificates, a service that was suspended during the lockdown, but the promised service to accept applications online is yet to roll out.

In the absence of an online facility to submit applications, many people are not being able to apply for certificates out of fear that they might be infected by the coronavirus in the crowded offices of the civic body.

Civic officials, too, are fearing the same following the easing of the lockdown norms.

Before the lockdown was imposed, the Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) used to accept only 100 applications for birth certificate and as many for death certificate at its headquarters on SN Banerjee Road every day.

People used to turn up early in the morning to ensure they were among the first 100 applicants. The room where applications were submitted remained crammed with people.

The scene was not very different in the borough offices either.

The fear of being sucked into a large gathering has kept many people away from civic offices. Sugata Sengupta, who is yet to apply for the birth certificate for his 15-month-old son, said he would wait a few more months before visiting a CMC office.

But he is afraid that if things do not improve, he would have to take the risk of visiting a civic office.

“I would have benefited greatly if they had started accepting applications online. In that case, I could have submitted all necessary documents online,” said Sengupta, whose son was born at a private hospital off EM Bypass in Anandapur.

The Telegraph had in March reported that the CMC planned to start accepting online applications from April but it could not happen because of the lockdown.

Now that the civic body has resumed issuing birth and death certificates, the need for accepting applications online is being felt more than ever.

Atin Ghosh, a member of CMC’s board of administrators, said they would ask people to drop their applications in boxes if there were long queues. “We are getting very few applications. But if the number surges, we will keep drop boxes,” he said.