The West Bengal Durga Puja grant is entering a more formal administrative phase this year, with committees required to submit their own PAN details and bank-account information before receiving government assistance. The change is intended to ensure that public money reaches an identifiable organisation rather than an individual office-bearer, but the timing has created difficulties for committees that have operated for years without formal registration or institutional accounts.
The reported dispute is therefore not only about a festival payment. It reveals a wider administrative problem in which community organisations may perform a public cultural and neighbourhood function without possessing the documentation expected of a formal financial entity. The government’s new process brings transparency requirements into an ecosystem that has historically relied on local relationships, police permissions and personal bank accounts to move money quickly.
According to the Anandabazar report, committees are being asked to provide a PAN card and bank-account details in the name of the Puja committee while applying for permission. Police stations have told committees that assistance with the grant process will not be possible without these details. Under the earlier arrangement, a committee without its own registration or account could submit the PAN and bank information of one of its office-bearers. The grant could then be issued through a cheque in that person’s name.
The new system removes that route. The government has decided that the money should be transferred directly to the Puja committee’s own bank account, meaning that a personal account can no longer serve as the channel for the grant. The change also affects the way committees receive private advertising revenue, which is another important source of funding for many large and small celebrations.
That distinction matters because a Puja committee is not always the same thing as a registered club or society. Some celebrations are organised by established clubs with existing accounts, while others are run by local committees that have continued for decades through informal arrangements. When such committees are suddenly asked to produce registration documents, a PAN card and a bank account within a short period, the administrative burden can become larger than the grant application itself.
The experience of the Begrakhal Joraberi Sarbojanin Durga Utsav Committee in the Maheshtala area illustrates the transition. The committee has organised its Puja for around 15 years and had previously used the PAN and bank-account details of its president, Prabhat Chakraborty, to receive assistance. The committee learnt about the new requirement while applying for permission through Maheshtala police station and then began trying to open an account in the committee’s name.
The committee was subsequently advised by a lawyer that completing the necessary registration paperwork and securing a PAN card and bank account in such a short period would be practically difficult. Chakraborty told Anandabazar that the Puja depended heavily on government assistance and that the condition had not been made clear when the grant was announced. A Puja committee in Jinjira Bazar, also in the Maheshtala area, was reported to be facing a similar problem.
These cases show the difference between a policy objective and an implementation pathway. Requiring an organisational account may be a defensible financial-control measure, especially when public grants and advertising receipts pass through the same committee. But the effectiveness of the rule depends on whether committees have adequate time, information and institutional support to complete the formalities. A requirement that is simple for a registered club may be difficult for a neighbourhood committee with no permanent office, full-time staff or established accounting system.
The transparency question
Organisers who support the new rule argue that the grant should be paid to an organisation rather than to an individual. Sandipan Bandyopadhyay, president of the Forum for Durga Utsav, told the newspaper that financial transactions connected with Durga Puja should not take place without a bank account and PAN card. He also argued that advertising money should pass through a specified account and that there should be no reason for Puja funds to be received in a private individual’s name.
Pratim Sarkar, adviser to the West Bengal Durga Puja Coordination Committee, made a similar argument. He said that most Durga Pujas are organised by clubs and that an existing club account should not create a difficulty. In his view, committees that have been receiving funds through an individual’s account should first register themselves and open an account before accepting government grants or private advertising revenue.
The arguments in favour of the policy identify a genuine weakness in informal public finance. A personal account makes it harder to distinguish committee money from an individual’s money, track the use of a grant or establish responsibility when a dispute arises. It can also make continuity difficult when an office-bearer changes. An institutional account, by contrast, creates a record that can remain with the organisation rather than with one person.
However, formalisation also changes the relationship between the state and local cultural bodies. For years, police stations appear to have been part of the operational channel through which committees sought permission and accessed grant-related assistance. Once documentation becomes mandatory, the police-facing permission process becomes linked to the financial eligibility process. Committees that are unable to complete the paperwork may face uncertainty not only over money but also over whether their event can proceed.
The report cites the Diamond Club’s Puja in Behala as a more serious example. The celebration has reportedly been held in a lane beside Behala police station for 68 years. Committee member Mukulesh Dam alleged that the club had earlier faced difficulty obtaining permission because of local political influence and had consequently been excluded from the previous government’s grant. He said the committee had applied for permission this year but still did not know whether it would receive financial assistance.
The allegation is presented as a claim by the committee member and is not independently established in the supplied report. Its significance lies in showing that financial eligibility can become inseparable from the question of administrative recognition. A committee that is not granted permission may never reach the stage at which it can benefit from a grant rule, while a committee that lacks documentation may be unable to demonstrate the institutional identity required by the new process.
A large public funding system under tighter controls
The scale of the programme explains why the payment mechanism matters. In 2025, the state reportedly provided Rs 1.10 lakh each to 45,336 Durga Puja committees, with a total allocation of Rs 498.69 crore. In 2024, the same number of committees received Rs 85,000 each, at a total cost of Rs 385.35 crore. The figures indicate a large and recurring public expenditure programme, not a limited discretionary payment to a handful of cultural groups.
The supplied report says that this year’s grant was announced at Rs 1 lakh per committee. It also reports that the government announced a 100 per cent waiver on electricity bills and a waiver of fire-service clearance fees. Larger-budget committees were urged not to accept the grant, and several committees in Kolkata reportedly announced that they would opt out.
Taken together, these measures create a more complex system than a single cash transfer. A committee may have to navigate event permission, fire clearance, electricity billing, bank documentation and grant eligibility. Each element is managed through a different administrative interface, even though the committee experiences them as one combined process of organising a public event.
The reduction in the per-committee grant from Rs 1.10 lakh in 2025 to Rs 1 lakh this year is also taking place alongside a stricter payment condition. That does not establish that the rule change will reduce access to the programme, but it does mean that committees face two simultaneous adjustments: a lower stated grant amount and a higher documentation threshold. For committees that rely heavily on assistance, the paperwork may be as consequential as the change in the payment itself.
The central administrative question is whether the government views these committees primarily as temporary event organisers or as organisations receiving public funds. If they are treated as recipients of public money, registration, tax identification and auditable accounts are logical requirements. If they are treated as community groups that organise an annual event, the state may need a transition mechanism that recognises their limited administrative capacity while preserving financial accountability.
The supplied report says that the state is not currently considering a change to the new rule, according to sources at Nabanna. That leaves committees to complete the formalities within the available time or seek assistance through existing organisations. The report also indicates that the problem is more pronounced in suburban and rural areas, where committees are less likely to have their own bank accounts.
This urban-rural distinction is important. Kolkata’s established clubs may already possess the institutional infrastructure needed to comply, while smaller committees may depend on one or two individuals to manage permissions, fundraising and payments. A uniform rule can therefore produce unequal effects even when the grant amount is identical for every committee.
The evidence currently establishes the existence of the new requirement, the difficulties reported by several committees, the arguments supporting institutional accounts and the scale of the grant programme. It does not establish how many committees have failed to open accounts, how many have been denied permission or whether the government has issued a written circular setting out a transition period. Those are the next facts needed to assess the policy’s implementation rather than only its intent.
The larger lesson is that public spending on community festivals cannot be separated from the administrative capacity of the groups that receive it. The West Bengal Durga Puja grant is moving from a system that could accommodate personal-account payments to one that demands organisational identity and traceable transactions. That may improve accountability, but unless the transition is clearly communicated and practically achievable, the rule risks turning a transparency reform into a deadline crisis for the very neighbourhood institutions it is meant to fund.
