WildBlueSkies - Trends and strategies in Digital Media

Today, we went to get our marriage certificate - in a process that gives enough reason all through the way to engage the services of a tout, blatantly flaunting the notice put up right at the entrance to the office.
This like a number of other Government services is as archaic as it can get, and I wonder where it would be the priority of services to go online - given the revenue that would be generated from this, I suspect pretty low.
Given that the wedding industry is estimated at 125,000 crores, growing at 25% annually, the number of marriages would be quite high, so part of the reason could be that most people do not get the marriage registered in court - the fact that quite a few of the wedded coupled came with their children would reinforce this theory. The Bandra court at Mumbai for example gets approximately 30 applications a day (with it doubling on the alternate Saturdays that the courts are open).
One relatively easy way to get this online:
1. The couples fill in their details online including the proof of residence, etc.
2. The couples also make the payment online - given that services such as MTNL bills that can now be paid online, the government should have perfected this.
3. The couple pick the date, and are given a time slot when they have to land up (an optimum number of applications could be decided for a day, based on which further online registrations could be stopped).
4. The couple lands up at the pre-determined date and time (failure to do so would result in the amount being forfeited), with the original documents, and can breeze through the whole process without spending too much time.
5. To balance it out, the court could perhaps be split into two - with part of the day being allocated for walk-ins and part for the online registration. The online registrations could be at a premium, and could include the notarization charges normally required for an offline application. Given the normal fees charged by a tout, it would probably still be cheaper.

If marketed, I am sure more people would get the marriages registered, and wedding portals would be a good place to promote this. It is strange that while the process of matchmaking has met with immense success online, the process of registration has barely any such presence.
While the Delhi Government website claims to have online marriage registration applications, I only found a downloadable copy of the form, while the Apply Online link was not working. Probably if more people started getting their marriages registered, it would merit greater attention.

Filed under: Ideas & Innovations, eGovernance