Birth Certificate in Rajasthan (Pehchan)

What is a birth certificate in Rajasthan?

A birth certificate in Rajasthan is the certified copy of an entry made in the register of births under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969. Rajasthan runs civil registration on Pehchan, the state's unified civil registration portal at pehchan.rajasthan.gov.in, which also answers at pehchan.raj.nic.in. According to the National Informatics Centre, which built and runs it, Pehchan carries every event of birth, death, still birth and marriage registered in Rajasthan, from more than 12,500 registrars and over 3,200 government hospitals, CHCs and PHCs.

Pehchan is unusual among state civil registration systems in how far it goes past a simple application form. Online applications can be submitted by citizens directly on the portal or on the Pehchan mobile app, and are also enabled from more than 1,800 private hospitals and roughly 80,000 e-Mitra kiosks. Digitally signed certificates are generated on the portal and delivered to citizens; birth, death and marriage certificates are pushed to citizens on WhatsApp once the registrar has e-signed them; and Pehchan registrations made after 2014 can be searched inside DigiLocker.

The certificate itself names the child, the date and place of birth, the sex and the parents' names. It is the document that school admission, Aadhaar enrolment, a passport application, a driving licence and most government job forms fall back on for proof of date of birth.

Who can and who cannot apply?

You can apply for a Rajasthan birth certificate if the birth took place inside Rajasthan. The applicant is normally the father, the mother, a legal guardian, the head of the household where the birth occurred, or the adult whose own birth is being certified. For an institutional birth, the hospital carries the statutory duty to report the event, and on Pehchan a large share of government-hospital births are entered before the parents ever open the portal.

You cannot apply in Rajasthan for a birth that took place in another state. Civil registration is territorial: the registrar of the place of birth makes the entry, and Rajasthan cannot import, convert or reissue another state's record. You are also not eligible for an ordinary certificate where the birth was never registered and is now more than a year old, that case must first go through a magistrate's order under Section 13(3) before any registrar can act.

A birth certificate carries no income limit, no caste criterion and no domicile test. Residence matters only for identifying which municipal ward or gram panchayat registrar has jurisdiction over the place of birth.

What are the time limits for registering a birth?

The Registration of Births and Deaths Act 1969 sets the ladder of time limits that Rajasthan applies:

• Within 21 days: the birth is registered free on the ordinary report to the registrar. In an institutional birth the hospital normally does this on Pehchan.
• 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: registration needs the written permission of the District Registrar or the officer authorised by him, an affidavit, and a late fee.
• After one year: the birth can only be registered on an order under Section 13(3) of the Act. The registrar first issues a Non-Availability Certificate showing that a search of the register found no entry, and the magistrate authorised for the district passes the order after examining the affidavit and the supporting family records.

The one-year line is the single most important thing to understand about birth registration in Rajasthan or anywhere else. An adult who has never held a birth certificate is nearly always past it, and no amount of paperwork at the municipal counter will substitute for the order.

How to apply for a birth certificate in Rajasthan online

1. Check whether the birth is already registered on Pehchan. For a government hospital, CHC or PHC birth in Rajasthan, the institution reports the event onto Pehchan directly, so the entry may already exist. Ask the hospital for the registration number, or search on the portal before filing anything new.
2. Open pehchan.rajasthan.gov.in and choose the citizen application option, or install the Pehchan mobile app. New users register with a mobile number and verify the OTP.
3. Enter the birth details. Fill in the child's name, the exact date, time and place of birth, the hospital or house address, the district and the municipal ward or gram panchayat, and both parents' names spelt exactly as they appear on Aadhaar.
4. Upload the supporting documents. The hospital birth report or discharge summary, the parents' Aadhaar, the address proof, and the applicant's identity proof: within the file size the upload screen states.
5. Pay the fee shown on the payment screen, if the portal asks for one, and save the receipt and the application number.
6. Wait for the registrar to verify and e-sign the entry. Once signed, the certificate is generated on Pehchan and can be downloaded from the E-Sign Certificate page at pehchan.rajasthan.gov.in/ECertificate.aspx, and Rajasthan also pushes it to the registered WhatsApp number.

How to apply through an e-Mitra kiosk

1. Visit any e-Mitra kiosk with originals and photocopies of the hospital record, the parents' Aadhaar and the address proof. Pehchan is connected to roughly 80,000 e-Mitra kiosks across Rajasthan, so the nearest one is rarely far.
2. Ask the operator to file the birth registration or certificate application on Pehchan in your name. It goes into the same queue as a self-filed online application, not a separate paper channel.
3. Pay the government fee plus the notified e-Mitra service charge, and collect the printed receipt with the application number on it.
4. Collect the printed certificate from the kiosk once the registrar has e-signed it, or download it yourself from Pehchan.

Where the birth has not been 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 PHC in a village — and get the event entered.

How do you check the application status and download the certificate?

Pehchan's E-Sign Certificate page is the place to look. Enter the registration details or the application number, and the portal shows whether the registrar has signed the record and lets you download the digitally signed PDF. Because Pehchan sends the signed certificate to the applicant's WhatsApp number and pushes post-2014 registrations into DigiLocker, most Rajasthan applicants end up with three separate ways to retrieve the same certificate without visiting an office.

If the entry does not appear at all, the problem is registration rather than the certificate, and the fix is at the registrar's counter, the municipal office, the gram panchayat or the hospital that should have reported the birth.

Why are Rajasthan birth certificate applications rejected?

• The birth was never reported, so Pehchan has no entry to certify.
• The parents' names on the hospital slip, on Aadhaar and on the application do not match.
• The birth is more than one year old and no Section 13(3) order has been obtained.
• The wrong registrar's jurisdiction has been selected, the ward or panchayat entered does not cover the actual place of birth.
• Uploaded scans are unreadable, or the wrong document has gone into a slot.
• A correction to an existing entry was filed as a fresh certificate application instead of being taken to the registrar who made the entry.

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. Beyond that, pay only the fee Pehchan displays on its payment screen or the amount the registrar's office publishes, plus the notified e-Mitra service charge if you file through a kiosk. Nobody at a municipal counter, a panchayat office or an e-Mitra kiosk is entitled to anything more. Agents who advertise a Rajasthan birth certificate "in 24 hours" for a few thousand rupees are selling a queue position they do not control. The file still reaches the same registrar and the same digital signature. Keep every receipt, and route a demand for extra money to the district collectorate's grievance cell.

Why the 21-day window matters more than anything else

Rajasthan has built one of the more complete civil registration systems in the country: hospital-side entry, e-Mitra reach, e-signed certificates, WhatsApp delivery and DigiLocker search. All of it only works if the birth was reported. A birth reported inside 21 days costs nothing and needs one visit or none at all where a government hospital reports it. The same record recovered twenty years later needs a Non-Availability Certificate, an affidavit, witnesses and a magistrate's order. Ask the hospital for the registration number before you take the baby home.