Privacy Policy

Registration of membership is a verified process. Information is collected only to the extent necessary to establish a person’s eligibility for membership, to maintain the register of members, and to carry out the religious, social and welfare programmes conducted by the Mahasabha under its constitution.

The information so collected comprises the particulars of identity, parentage, community and residence required to record a member in the register; the contact particulars by which a member may be reached; a photograph for the membership record; and the category of membership taken. Where a member was enrolled earlier by paper receipt, the particulars of that earlier enrolment are also recorded.

Enrolment is not open to the public. Every entry in the register is made by an authorised office-bearer of the Mahasabha, acting on the particulars supplied by the person being enrolled, and the Mahasabha records by whom each entry and each subsequent correction was made, so that any particular in dispute may be traced.

Enrolment is limited to persons of the Bishnoi samaj who have completed 18 years of age. The Mahasabha does not knowingly collect or process the personal data of children, and no membership is recorded for a person below that age. If it comes to our notice that a record relates to a child, that record will be removed.

Where a member completes Aadhaar-based identity verification, that verification is performed by an external verification agency. The Mahasabha receives only a limited set of particulars from that agency and retains the outcome of the verification together with a non-reversible code used for the single purpose of preventing the same person being enrolled twice. No Aadhaar number is stored in any manner by the Mahasabha or within this system.

No card, UPI or bank account details are collected or stored by the Mahasabha at any stage. Payments are processed by the payment gateway, which returns only a payment reference, the amount and the result.

• To create and maintain your membership record and issue your membership ID.
• To confirm you are who you say you are, and to prevent the same person being registered more than once.
• To prepare gram-ikai membership lists and, where applicable, election voter lists.
• To send you the one-time passwords needed to sign in, and messages about your membership or payment.
• To keep the accounts and records the Mahasabha is required to keep as a registered society.

Some information on this website can be seen by anyone, without signing in. Please read this section carefully before taking membership.

• Certain posts in the Mahasabha — prabharis and other office-bearers — carry a duty to remain reachable by the samaj. A person accepting such a post does so on oath and with their express consent to the publication of their name, role, district and mobile number on this website, so that members may contact them in the discharge of that duty. Publication is confined to the particulars the office requires and continues only for so long as the post is held.
• Gram-ikai wise voter rolls can be downloaded by anyone as a PDF. These are not a general list of the membership — they carry only those members qualified to vote in the Mahasabha’s internal elections to its posts, and are published so that a member may verify their own entry and object to an entry that is wrong. Each roll shows the member’s name, father’s or husband’s name, membership particulars and location. The rolls do not carry mobile numbers.
• Your own membership ID is not public. Retrieving it requires a one-time password sent to your registered mobile number.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We share it only with the services needed to run the platform, and only to the extent each needs:

• Razorpay — to collect donations and confirm payment.
• MSG91 — to send one-time passwords and membership messages by SMS.
• AuthBridge — to carry out Aadhaar-based identity verification, where you choose to complete it.
• Amazon Web Services — to store member photographs and to host the platform.

We may also disclose information where we are required to by law, by a court, or by a government authority acting within its powers.

Membership records are kept permanently. The Mahasabha maintains a continuing register of its members — lifetime memberships, gram-ikai lists and election rolls all depend on records that are not deleted over time.

If you want your record removed, write to us at the address in the last section. We will consider the request, and will tell you where a record must be retained despite it — for example where it is part of the Mahasabha’s statutory accounts or of an election roll already published.

As a Data Principal under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you have the following rights in respect of the information the Mahasabha holds about you:

• The right to obtain a summary of the personal data held about you and how it is being processed, and the identities of those with whom it has been shared.
• The right to have your particulars corrected, completed or updated. Some details — your name, your father’s or husband’s name and your gender — can be changed only after a one-time password is sent to your registered mobile number, because those particulars identify you.
• The right to seek erasure of your personal data, subject to the retention set out in the section above.
• The right to nominate another person to exercise these rights on your behalf in the event of your death or incapacity.
• The right to have a grievance about the handling of your personal data heard and answered.

Any of these rights may be exercised by writing to the Mahasabha office using the contact details at the end of this policy. We will respond within a reasonable period. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may make a complaint to the Data Protection Board of India.

Information sent between your device and this website travels over an encrypted connection. Access to member records is restricted to office-bearers, and what each can see and change is limited to their own state, district or gram ikai. Signing in requires a one-time password sent to a registered mobile number; there is no password to be guessed or reused.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe your record has been accessed or altered without your knowledge, contact us immediately.

In the event of a personal data breach, the Mahasabha will notify the Data Protection Board of India and each affected member, in the manner required by the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

We may update this policy. The date shown at the top of this page is the date the current version took effect, and any revision applies from the date it is published here.

For any question about this policy, to exercise any of the rights set out above, or to raise a grievance about how your personal data has been handled, contact the Mahasabha office:

• Email: bishnoimahasabha@gmail.com
• Telephone: 01531-266635, 01531-288057
• Post: Akhil Bhartiya Bishnoi Mahasabha, Muktidham Mukam, Tehsil Nokha, District Bikaner, Rajasthan, India

Please include your registered mobile number and your membership ID, if you have one, so that your record can be found.