Terms of Service

1. Agreeing to these terms

By creating an account or using UtsavMitra, you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree with them, please do not use the app.

Where you use UtsavMitra on behalf of a committee, society, mandal or similar group, you confirm that you are permitted to do so by that group.

2. Who we are

UtsavMitra is operated by Rajat Mishra, an individual based in Surat, Gujarat, India. It is not a registered company. Throughout these terms, "we", "us" and "our" refer to that individual operator.

You can reach us at support@utsavmitra.co.in.

3. Who can use UtsavMitra

You must be at least 18 years old to hold an UtsavMitra account. The app is built for the adults who run a festival — the organisers, treasurers and volunteers who handle money and answer to their neighbours.

We know younger members of a society often help with festival work. They are welcome to help; they simply should not be registering accounts. An adult organiser holds the account and manages the tasks. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18, and we do not ask for your date of birth.

4. What UtsavMitra is — and what it is not

UtsavMitra is a record-keeping and coordination tool. It lets a committee record chanda received, log expenses, assign tasks, set collection targets and keep everyone informed.

We do not touch your money

This matters enough to spell out precisely. UtsavMitra:

• Never holds, receives, transfers or processes funds. Money moves directly between people — cash handed over in person, or a UPI transfer between their own bank accounts
• Is not a bank, payment aggregator, payment gateway, wallet, prepaid instrument or escrow service, and is not regulated by the Reserve Bank of India
• Does not verify any amount. If the app shows that ₹5,000 was collected, it is because a member of your committee recorded ₹5,000. We have no way to confirm that money actually changed hands

The hisaab (ledger) you see in the app is a record of what your committee reported, not a balance we hold on your behalf. There is nothing for us to pay out, freeze or refund, because we never had it.

Disputes about money are between you and your committee

If members disagree about what was collected, what was spent, or who owes what, that is a matter for your committee to resolve. We can show you what was recorded and when. We cannot adjudicate who is right, recover funds, or act as an arbitrator.

5. Your account

You sign in with your mobile number, verified by a one-time password. Keep access to that number and that device secure — anyone who can receive your OTP can reach your account.

• Provide accurate information, and keep it current
• One account per person. Do not create accounts for other people or impersonate anyone
• Do not share your OTP with anyone, including anyone claiming to be from UtsavMitra. We will never ask you for it
• Tell us promptly at support@utsavmitra.co.in if you think someone else has got into your account

You remain responsible for what happens under your account.

6. Groups, festivals and roles

Work in UtsavMitra happens inside groups. Whoever creates a group becomes its organiser and can invite others, assign roles and grant permissions such as the right to record expenses.

If you are an organiser, you decide who joins and what they can see and do. Think carefully about that — a member you add can see the group's records, including donor details other members have entered. Remove people who no longer need access.

A group's records belong to the group as a whole rather than to any one member. If you leave a group, or delete your account, the group's ledger stays intact so the committee's accounts remain complete and auditable. Section 10 explains what happens to your personal information in that situation.

7. Information you enter about other people

Collecting chanda often means writing down someone else's details — a shop owner's name, a neighbour's phone number, a guest's contribution. UtsavMitra lets you record those so you can issue an acknowledgement and keep the committee's accounts straight.

When you enter another person's details, you confirm that you are entitled to do so. In practice that means:

• Only add someone's phone number or email if they have agreed to it. Ask them — a donor who does not know their number is in an app has not consented to it
• Enter only what you actually need. A name is usually enough for a receipt; the phone number is optional and you should leave it blank if it is not needed
• Use those details only for the festival you collected for — not for marketing, not for anything unrelated

If someone whose details appear in UtsavMitra asks us to remove them, they can write to privacy@utsavmitra.co.in and we will act on that request. Our Privacy Policy explains how this information is handled in more detail.

8. Receipts and acknowledgements

UtsavMitra can generate a receipt for a recorded contribution. Please be clear about what that document is:

• It is an acknowledgement generated from what a committee member entered — a courtesy for the donor and a record for the committee
• It is not a government-recognised tax receipt, and it does not entitle anyone to a deduction under Section 80G or any other provision of the Income Tax Act
• It is not proof of payment. We did not witness the transaction and cannot certify that it happened

If your committee is a registered trust or society with statutory receipting obligations, those obligations are yours and UtsavMitra's receipts do not discharge them. Please take your own professional advice.

9. Acceptable use

Do not use UtsavMitra to:

• Collect money by deception, or for a festival or purpose that does not exist
• Record false figures in order to mislead your committee or its donors
• Harass, threaten or abuse anyone, or upload unlawful, obscene or infringing content
• Store other people's personal information without the right to do so, or use it for purposes they did not agree to
• Break any applicable Indian law, including laws on collecting funds from the public and on foreign contributions
• Probe, scrape, overload or reverse-engineer the service, or try to reach data that is not yours

10. Your content, and ours

What you put into UtsavMitra — records, photographs, messages, attachments — remains yours. You grant us only the permission we need to operate the service: to store that content, and to show it to the other members of your group as the app is designed to do.

The app itself, the UtsavMitra name and logo, the design and the underlying software are ours. Using the service does not transfer any of that to you.

11. Fees

UtsavMitra is free to use at present. If we introduce paid features in future, we will say clearly what is being charged for before you are asked to pay, and existing features you rely on will not silently become paid. Your mobile network's data and SMS charges are yours.

12. Leaving, and deletion

You can delete your account from inside the app at any time, or by asking us at privacy@utsavmitra.co.in. The steps, and exactly what deletion covers, are set out at utsavmitra.co.in/delete-account.

Deletion removes your personal details — your name, mobile number, email and profile photo. It does not erase the financial records of committees you took part in. Donations, expenses and ledger entries stay, with your identity removed, so the committee's accounts remain complete. This is a deliberate choice: a treasurer's records should not develop holes because a member left. Our Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is removed and what is kept.

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, or where we are required to by law. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you why.

13. Services we rely on

UtsavMitra runs on infrastructure provided by other companies — including Google, for sign-in verification and notifications, and our hosting and database providers. Their handling of data is described in our Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for outages or failures originating with those providers, though we will do what we reasonably can to keep the service running.

14. No warranties

UtsavMitra is provided as is. We do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, that it will suit your committee's particular way of working, or that the figures in it are accurate — that last one depends entirely on what your members enter.

Nothing in the app is financial, tax, accounting or legal advice.

15. Limitation of liability

To the extent Indian law permits, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for loss of profit or goodwill, for money that goes missing between people using the app, or for disputes between committee members.

Where liability cannot lawfully be excluded, our total liability to you is limited to the greater of the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or ₹1,000.

Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything else that cannot be limited under Indian law.

16. Indemnity

If a claim is brought against us because of how you used UtsavMitra — including a claim by someone whose personal information you entered without permission — you agree to cover the reasonable costs and losses arising from it.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the app develops or the law changes. The date at the top always shows the current version. For changes that materially affect your rights, we will give notice in the app or by email before they take effect. Continuing to use UtsavMitra after that means you accept the revised terms.

18. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of India. The courts at Surat, Gujarat have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.

Before going to court, please write to us at support@utsavmitra.co.in. Most problems are quicker to fix that way.

19. Getting in touch

• General and support — support@utsavmitra.co.in
• Privacy, data and deletion requests — privacy@utsavmitra.co.in