(a)The police may be called upon to perform, except within railway limits, the duty of collecting, registering and transmitting vital statistics in rural areas other than those (i) completely covered by union boards or (ii) covered entirely by chaukidari unions or partly by chaukidari unions and partly by union boards where all the presidents are willing to undertake the work without remuneration.(b)A register of births (B. P. Form No. 25) and a register of deaths (B.P. Form No. 26) shall be maintained at the police-stations concerned.(c)All police registers of births and deaths shall be open to inspection by the Director of Public Health, Assistant Directors of Public Health, District Health Officers, Municipal Health Officers, Civil Surgeons, District Magistrates, Sub-divisional Officers, Circle Officers, Superintendents and Assistant and Deputy Superintendents, Assistant Health Officers, Sanitary Inspectors, Assistant Superintendent of Vaccination and Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors of Vaccination. Defects discovered in the local registration of vital statistics shall be reported direct to Superintendents for necessary action.(d)On return from town and mufassil duty, constables shall report at the police-station any birth or death which has come to their knowledge. If the person responsible under sections 7 and 8 of the Bengal Births and Deaths Registration, Act, 1873 (Bengal Act IV of 1873), for reporting the birth or death has neglected to report, the officer-in-charge of the police-station shall ordinarily recommend his prosecution to the District Health Officer.(e)A return of births and deaths reported during the preceding month shall be forwarded monthly by the officer-in-charge of a police-station to the Sub-divisional Magistrate for transmission to the District Health Officer in Bengal Form. No. 2996A.(f)On the back of the monthly return a statement shall be given showing the names of villages affected by cholera, plague or small-pox and the number of deaths from each of these diseases in each village and the number of dead bodies, belonging to other areas but disposed of at the local burning ghats or burial grounds during the month.(g)The officer-in-charge of a police-station shall ascertain and estimate annually the local requirements of vital statistics forms and registers and report them to the Sub-divisional Magistrate for transmission to the District Health Officer who will distribute them on receipt from the Forms Department.(h)The duties of the police under the Bengal Vaccination Acts, 1880 and 1911 (Bengal Act V of 1880, amended by Bengal Act II of 1911), are limited to the service of a notice in the form prescribed in Schedule E of the Act and to the transmission of a copy of the notice to the District Health Officer.(i)The police shall charge a fee for supplying copies of entries in the registers of births and deaths at the rate of four annas for each extract. This fee shall be credited to the treasury as a police receipt under the head "XXIII - 'Police-Fees, fines and forfeitures" and the officer-in-charge of the police-station shall certify that the copies given are true copies.(j)No fee shall be charged for supplying such extracts to a District Soldiers Board.
