Patna: Bihar will dismiss government officials caught accepting dowry, the administration of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has said.

The crackdown comes as the Bihar government presses officials to vow not to accept dowry.

“Government officials will have to give the undertaking that they would not take dowry,” a senior official from the Department of Social Welfare department told the media today. “If caught violating their own declaration, they [will] be summarily dismissed from service.”

Authorities said they were issuing notices to all department heads in this regard, with the department heads tasked with getting all officials under their command to accept the government’s anti-dowry campaign, he added.

The Bihar government said it would honour a man, Hindra Singh, who earlier this week returned a dowry of Rs400,000 (Dh22,508) paid by the family of his son’s bride.

Singh, a resident of Ara town in central Bihar’s Bhojpur district, had been inspired by the government’s anti-dowry campaign.

The government praised him for setting an example that would inspire society.

A retired school principal, Singh had accepted the dowry in February this year to initiate the marriage of his younger son Prem Ranjan Singh, whose wedding is scheduled to be solemnised in December.

The development comes after the state government unveiled its campaign against dowry on October 2 to coincide with the 148th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and also asked the masses not to attend weddings in which dowry has been paid. The government also launched a campaign against child marriages — a scourge prevalent in society today.

“The dream of development will always remain unfulfilled until these two social evils are eradicated from the society,” Nitish Kumar said as he kick-started the campaign.

Between 2012 and 2014, around 25,000 women were either killed or committed suicide after being harassed by their in-laws over dowry payments, according to an official report. Uttar Pradesh reported the highest number of deaths at 7,048, followed by Bihar with 3,830 deaths.

This information was provided to the Lok Sabha by federal minister Maneka Gandhi.