The Registration of Birth and Death System, which enables the continuous and permanent recording of birth and Death under a statutory regime is more than a century old in India. It was in 1969 that a Central Act known as the Registration of Birth and Death (RBD) Act, 1969 was enacted to overcome the prevalent diverse legal provisions for registration of birth and death in the country. The Act Unified the system of registration throughout the country and made registration of birth and Death compulsory. It also defined the procedures, machinery, principles, personnel and penalties Connected with the enforcement of the Act.

Birth and Death are the two importants vital events that define the life of an individual. Not only do they describe the legal existence of an individual, registration of these events is a source of basic vital data of the population to which they belong. Civil Registration is continuous,permanent and compulsory data of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events, such as, birth, death, still birth and statistics based thereon is termed as Vital Statistics.