The proposal, which is likely to be passed in the Mayor-in-Council, also recommends hiking the rates for issuing birth and death certificates. Now, citizens will pay Rs 10 per certificate instead of the present nominal fee of Rs two. However, officials claimed that there would be no delay in obtaining certificates as the department will be computerised. Frequent breakdowns of machinery in premier civic hospitals have also forced BMC to seek outside assistance. The corporation has dashed off a letter to the director of K J Hospital, Chennai, urging it to install X-ray and scanning machines in the King Edward Memorial, B Y L Nair, Sion, Bhagwati and Rajawadi hospitals. The scanning machines in these hospitals, especially KEMand Sion, were found to be frequently malfunctioning.

The Chennai hospital is to bear the cost of installing the machinery, but will not be charged for using the hospital premises. The BMC will sign an agreement with the hospital wherein patients admitted will be charged as per the amount laid down in the BMC Act. However, the hospital will be allowed to carry out tests privately and decide its own fee structure.

Till Tuesday, the scanning machine at Sion and the X-ray machine at KEM failed to work. Officials in the civic health department said the tube of the X-ray machine at KEM has not been functioning for the last two-three days. The health committee had passed a proposal to buy the tubes almost two months ago, but they still haven't been purchased. The story is the same with the scanning machine at Sion. ``We need about Rs 70 lakh to repair the machine,'' said chairperson of the health committee, Sardar Tara Singh.