Birth Certificate in Bihar (RTPS / Service Plus)

What is a birth certificate in Bihar?

A birth certificate in Bihar is the certified copy of an entry made in the register of births under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969. It names the child, the date and place of birth, the sex and the parents' names, and it is the first legal identity document an Indian citizen holds.

Bihar delivers the citizen-facing part of the process through Service Plus, the state's Right to Public Services portal at serviceonline.bihar.gov.in. On that portal, birth certificate issuance; listed in Hindi as "जन्म प्रमाण-पत्र का निर्गमन (आर टी पी एस काउंटर से)": sits under the Planning and Development Department (योजना एवं विकास विभाग), which is the department that owns civil registration statistics in Bihar. The portal offers two paths for the same service: an application filed at an RTPS counter, and an online application routed to the Civil Registration System.

Registration itself is done by the registrar of births and deaths for the area, not by the portal. In towns that is the municipal corporation, municipal council or nagar panchayat; in villages it is the gram panchayat or the primary health centre. Hospitals and nursing homes are required to report institutional births to that registrar. Service Plus is where a citizen files, tracks and collects, and Bihar states plainly on it that citizens can apply online without visiting a government office, with certificates delivered via SMS, email, DigiLocker or the service portal.

Who can and who cannot apply?

You can apply for a Bihar birth certificate if the birth took place inside Bihar. The applicant is the father, the mother, a legal guardian, the head of the household in which the birth occurred, or the adult whose own birth is being certified. For an institutional birth the hospital carries the reporting duty, but the parents remain responsible for confirming that the entry was actually made. A hospital slip is not a birth certificate.

You cannot apply in Bihar for a birth that took place in another state. Civil registration is territorial: only the registrar of the place of birth can make the entry, and Bihar cannot convert or reissue another state's record. You are also not eligible for an ordinary certificate where no birth was ever registered and the birth is now more than one year old, that case has to go through a magistrate's order first.

There is no income limit, no caste criterion and no domicile test for a birth certificate. Residence matters only in deciding which ward or panchayat registrar has jurisdiction.

How to apply for a birth certificate in Bihar online

1. Check whether the birth is registered. Ask the hospital for the registration number it reported, or search the record on the national Civil Registration System portal at dc.crsorgi.gov.in. If nothing was reported, the birth has to be registered before any certificate can be printed.
2. Register on Service Plus. Open serviceonline.bihar.gov.in and create a citizen account with your mobile number, or log in if you already have one.
3. Open the Planning and Development Department service list and select the birth certificate service, "जन्म प्रमाण-पत्र का निर्गमन". Read the document checklist the portal shows before you begin.
4. Fill the application form. Enter the child's name, the exact date and place of birth, the hospital or house address, the district, block and ward or panchayat, and both parents' names spelt exactly as on Aadhaar.
5. Upload the documents. The hospital birth report, both parents' Aadhaar, the residence proof and the applicant's identity proof — each within the size limit the upload screen states.
6. Pay the fee shown on the payment screen, if the portal asks for one, and save the receipt.
7. Note the application number on the acknowledgement. It is what you will use to track the file and to download the certificate.

How to apply at an RTPS counter

1. Visit the RTPS counter at your block, anchal, sub-divisional or district office with originals and photocopies of the hospital record, the parents' Aadhaar and the residence proof.
2. Ask the operator to file the Planning and Development Department birth certificate application under the RTPS counter route. The file enters the same electronic queue as an online application.
3. Pay the fee published at the counter and collect the printed receipt carrying the application number.
4. Collect the certificate from the same counter once issued, or let Bihar deliver it by SMS, email or DigiLocker.

Where the birth was never reported at all, go first to the registrar, the municipal ward office in a town, or the gram panchayat secretary or the ANM at the primary health centre in a village, and get the event entered in the register.

What are the time limits under the 1969 Act?

The Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969 sets the same ladder everywhere, and Bihar applies it:

• Within 21 days of birth: registered free by the local registrar on the ordinary report. This is the only window with no permission and no penalty.
• After 21 days and up to 30 days: the registrar may register the event on payment of a late fee.
• After 30 days and up to one year: written permission of the District Registrar or the officer he authorises is required, along with an affidavit and a late fee.
• After one year: registration is possible only on an order under Section 13(3) of the Act. In practice this means the registrar first issues a Non-Availability Certificate confirming that a search of the register found no entry, and the magistrate authorised for the district then passes the order after examining the affidavit, sibling school records and witness statements.

Bihar's own practice reflects this: a report made after 21 days is treated as a delayed registration, which brings verification and an overdue fee that a timely report does not. The one-year line is the hard one, an adult who has never held a birth certificate is almost always beyond it.

How do you check the application status?

Use the "Track Application Status" option on serviceonline.bihar.gov.in with the application number from your acknowledgement. The portal's helpdesk email is serviceonline.bihar@gov.in. Where the file was submitted at an RTPS counter, the same counter can read out the stage the application has reached. Because Bihar delivers issued certificates through SMS, email, DigiLocker and the portal, most applicants receive the certificate without a second visit.

Why are Bihar birth certificate applications rejected?

• The birth was never reported to the registrar, so there is no entry to certify.
• The parents' names on the hospital record, on Aadhaar and on the form do not match.
• The birth is more than one year old and no magistrate's order has been produced.
• The wrong ward, panchayat or block has been entered, sending the file to a registrar without jurisdiction.
• Uploaded scans are unreadable or a document has gone into the wrong slot.
• The applicant sought a correction to an existing entry through a fresh issuance application instead of asking the registrar to amend the register.

What does it cost, and what about agents?

Registration of a birth reported within 21 days is free under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969. For everything else, pay only what the Service Plus payment screen displays or what the RTPS counter publishes, plus the notified operator charge at a common service centre. No clerk, dealing assistant or middleman is entitled to a rupee beyond that. Bihar has built the RTPS route precisely so that a citizen does not have to buy access to a counter, and the portal itself says applications can be made without visiting a government office. Agents who promise a birth certificate "in three days" for a few thousand rupees are selling a queue position they do not control. Keep the receipt, and take a demand for extra money to the district's RTPS grievance route or the Service Plus helpdesk email.

Why the 21-day window is worth protecting

A birth certificate is the document that school admission, Aadhaar enrolment, a passport, a driving licence, a government job application and most scholarship forms fall back on for proof of date of birth. A birth reported inside 21 days is registered free, in one visit, on the ordinary report. The same record recovered two decades later needs a Non-Availability Certificate, an affidavit, two witnesses, sibling school records and a magistrate's order: months of work for a document that would have cost nothing. Before leaving the hospital, ask for the registration number, and confirm within three weeks that the entry exists.