Death Certificate (Mrityu Praman Patra) in Bihar

Death Certificate in Bihar, the Mrityu Praman Patra, is the legal record of a person's death, its date and its place, made under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969 by the Nagar Nigam, Nagar Parishad, Nagar Panchayat or Block office with jurisdiction over the place of death, and applied for through the state's RTPS ServicePlus portal at serviceonline.bihar.gov.in. No insurance claim, family pension transfer, land mutation, bank account closure or succession proceeding will move without it.

Who issues the death certificate in Bihar?

Bihar registers deaths through its local bodies. District administrations name the issuing authority as the Nagar Parishad or Nagar Panchayat office in a town and the Block office in a rural area, with the Gram Panchayat handling reporting at the village level. This is a different chain from the Bihar caste, residence and income certificates, which are issued by the Circle Officer through the revenue hierarchy. Families used to the RTPS route for those certificates often go to the wrong counter for a death certificate.

The RTPS platform is the front end. Bihar's ServicePlus portal at serviceonline.bihar.gov.in carries birth and death certificates alongside the General Administration Department's residence, caste and income certificates, and applications can be made online directly, at an RTPS counter through the executive assistant at the local government office, or through a Common Service Centre or kiosk. The portal is integrated with Meri Pehchaan, the national single sign-on, and can deliver issued certificates by SMS, email, DigiLocker or the ServicePlus inbox.

Registration is jurisdictional. The death is registered where it occurred, not where the family lives. A Patna family whose parent died in a Delhi hospital registers that death in Delhi.

Who can and cannot apply for a death certificate in Bihar?

The spouse, the children or any family member of the deceased can register the death. Legal heirs and insurance nominees can obtain certified copies afterwards. For a death in a hospital or nursing home the institution is the reporting authority; for a death in jail the officer in charge reports it; for an unclaimed body or a death in a public place the officer in charge of the local police station is the informant.

You cannot register in Bihar a death that occurred in another state. You cannot register the same death twice; where an entry already exists the correct request is a certified copy, not a fresh registration. A person with no relationship to the deceased and no legal interest in the record cannot demand a copy. And a death older than one year cannot be registered on the ordinary counter route; it requires the permission of the competent magistrate, and Bihar districts require a BDO or Sub Divisional Officer order for anything beyond 30 days.

What are the fees for a death certificate in Bihar?

Bihar publishes its fee slab openly, and it is one of the clearest in the country. District administrations in Nalanda and East Champaran both list registration within 21 days as free, Rs 2 for registration between 21 and 30 days, Rs 5 between 30 and 365 days, and Rs 10 after 365 days, with the death certificate itself charged at Rs 10.

Read that slab twice, because it is the single most useful fact in this guide. The entire government cost of registering a death and taking a certificate in Bihar is measured in single-digit and low double-digit rupees. Every rupee above that which a family is asked to pay is somebody's margin, not the state's fee.

What documents are required for a death certificate in Bihar?

Bihar's document list changes according to where the death happened and how quickly the family is applying, and district administrations publish that split explicitly.

For a hospital death registered within 21 days, the requirement is the hospital certificate together with the cemetery certificate or ghat receipt.

For a death at home registered within 21 days, the requirement is a notarised affidavit, a recommendation letter from the ward councillor, and the cemetery certificate or ghat receipt.

For any registration made after 30 days, the requirement adds an order copy issued by the BDO or Sub Divisional Officer, address proof and an affidavit.

Alongside these, carry identity proof of the deceased: Aadhaar, voter ID or PAN, and identity proof of the applying family member with proof of the relationship. Where the death occurred in a hospital, the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death issued by the treating doctor is the document that establishes the cause, and the hospital issues it as a matter of course.

How to apply for a death certificate in Bihar online

1. Open serviceonline.bihar.gov.in and register a citizen account, or sign in through Meri Pehchaan if you already have a national single sign-on account.
2. Find the death certificate service under the birth and death registration services, and select the district, block and local body covering the place where the death occurred.
3. Fill the death details exactly as they appear on the hospital record — full name of the deceased, father's or husband's name, date and time of death, place of death, age and sex, and the certified cause where a hospital certificate exists.
4. Enter the applicant's details and the relationship to the deceased. This field decides whether a bank or insurer will accept the certificate later, so state the relationship precisely.
5. Upload the document set for your case: hospital certificate and ghat receipt for a hospital death, or affidavit, councillor's letter and ghat receipt for a home death, plus the BDO or SDO order if you are past 30 days.
6. Pay the fee at the payment step: nothing for registration within 21 days, the published late fee beyond it, and Rs 10 for the certificate.
7. Submit and save the application reference number on the acknowledgement receipt.
8. Track the reference number and collect the digitally signed certificate through the ServicePlus inbox, DigiLocker, email or SMS link once it is issued.

How to apply at an RTPS counter or the local body

1. Go to the RTPS counter at the block office, or to the Nagar Nigam, Nagar Parishad or Nagar Panchayat office for the area where the death occurred.
2. Hand the executive assistant the death report details with the hospital certificate or the affidavit and councillor's letter, the ghat or cemetery receipt, and the identity documents.
3. The counter files the same online application, collects the notified fee and issues an acknowledgement receipt with the application reference number.
4. Collect the certificate at the counter after approval, or download it from the ServicePlus inbox once the status shows issued.

Common Service Centres run the same workflow for families without internet access. They are permitted to charge their notified service charge on top of the government fee, and nothing more.

How long does it take and how do I check status?

Processing generally runs about 7 to 21 working days, varying with the local authority's workload and how quickly the documents verify. Track the application on serviceonline.bihar.gov.in with the reference number, or at any RTPS counter or CSC. Bihar publishes a helpdesk number of 1800-121-4554 on district birth and death certificate pages, and a helpdesk email at serviceonline[dot]bihar[at]gov[dot]in; technical escalation runs through the block IT assistant and the district IT manager to the NIC Bihar ServicePlus team.

Do not file a second application while the first is pending. Duplicate applications for the same death slow the original and can produce conflicting register entries that then need correcting.

Does a Bihar death certificate expire?

No. A death certificate has no validity period and never needs renewal. The register entry is permanent and certified copies can be issued from it decades later. What families run out of is copies, not validity. At Rs 10 a copy, order four or five up front: life insurance, the bank, the pension section, the mutation file at the circle office and each utility transfer will each keep an original.

Why do Bihar death certificate applications get rejected?

The recurring causes are a name on the application that does not match the deceased's Aadhaar or voter ID, a place of death outside the jurisdiction of the local body applied to, a home death filed without the affidavit and ward councillor's letter, a missing cemetery certificate or ghat receipt, an application made after 30 days without the BDO or SDO order attached, and illegible document uploads. Applications for a death more than a year old without the competent authority's order will not be processed at all until that order is obtained.

Where do I complain if the certificate is delayed?

Start at the RTPS counter or local body office with the application reference number, then escalate to the Block Development Officer or the executive officer of the municipal body, and above that to the Sub Divisional Officer and the District Magistrate's office. The helpdesk number published on district pages is 1800-121-4554. Because death certificate is delivered under Bihar's Right to Public Services framework, a breach of the notified timeline gives you a statutory appeal, and that appeal is a stronger lever than repeated visits to the counter. Keep the acknowledgement receipt, the reference number and the fee receipt: every escalation asks for all three.

Who is eligible

Who can apply

• The spouse of the deceased
• Sons, daughters or any other children of the deceased, including adult children living outside Bihar
• Parents, siblings or any other family member with a documented relationship to the deceased
• Legal heirs who need the record to settle an estate, even if they did not file the original death report
• Insurance nominees applying for a certified copy once the register entry already exists
• A hospital or nursing home, acting as the reporting institution, for a death that occurred on its premises
• The officer in charge of the jail, for a death in custody
• The officer in charge of the local police station, for an unclaimed body or a death in a public place with no identified family present

Who cannot apply, or cannot apply through the ordinary route

• A person with no family relationship and no legal interest in the deceased's estate cannot request a copy of the record
• Anyone applying for a death that occurred outside Bihar; that registration has to be made in the state or Union Territory where the death actually happened
• Anyone attempting to register a death for which an entry already exists in the register; the only valid request at that point is a certified copy, not a second registration
• Anyone applying for a death more than 30 days old without first obtaining the required order; between 21 and 365 days a late fee alone suffices, but only a district authority order removes the block past 30 days
• Anyone applying for a death more than one year old at an ordinary RTPS or local body counter; that route is closed, and the application has to go through a competent magistrate for permission before any counter or portal will accept it

Special cases worth checking before you apply

• Death of a Bihar resident while travelling or admitted in a hospital in another state: the registration happens in that other state, not in Bihar, even though the family and the deceased's usual residence are in Bihar
• Death of a person with no surviving close relative: the informant can be a more distant relative, a neighbour who reported the death, or the institution or police station involved, but the applicant for a later certified copy still has to show a legal interest such as a pending claim or property matter
• Stillbirths and foetal deaths are registered separately from deaths and do not use this same death certificate process
• A death registered by an institution (hospital, jail) still allows the family to apply afterwards for as many certified copies as they need, without having to be the original informant