Marriage registration in state suspended till Jan 5
Kolkata: Marriage registration in Bengal will remain temporarily suspended from Tuesday till January 5, due to maintenance work of the marriage portal.
According to an official of the Law department, marriage registrations in Bengal through the portal have been going on since 2019. “Despite occasional closures lasting around three to four hours, this is the first instance of a four-day shutdown,” the official stated.
Biometric fingerprint verification has been introduced for marriage registration since November 1, 2022. “There have been instances when the fingerprints of brides, bridegrooms and witnesses and even of officers have failed to match due to technical glitches which resulted in the failure of marriage registrations on specified days. So, the West Bengal Marriage Registrar General’s office, responsible for overseeing the marriage registration process has decided to take up a thorough maintenance of the portal to overcome such issues,” the official said.
A three-day advance notice regarding the four-day closure of the portal was issued by the office of the Registrar General of Marriages, West Bengal to around 1,000 marriage officers in the state. “Such a short period notice of the closure has left those who submitted notices or applications for marriage registration during this period in the lurch,“ a marriage registration official based in South 24-Parganas said on conditions of anonymity.
According to sources, there were around 1000 applications of registry marriages during these four days which will naturally get postponed.
No marriage ceremony takes place during the Bengali month of Poush (from mid-December till mid-January) as it is considered to be extremely inauspicious. So, many couples undergo registry marriage during Poush and host the ceremony later.