2026-09-26·Post

Durga Puja Chiti: How to Collect Donations Without Losing Friends

Why chanda decides the puja

A Kolkata community puja runs on donations. The committee can have the best theme idea, the best artisan and the best pandal plan in the area, and none of it happens without the chita. Yet chanda collection is usually the last thing a committee organises and the first thing it does badly.

The difficulty is not the asking. It is that asking is a relationship, and a relationship is harder to run on enthusiasm than to run on a system. Committees that collect well have almost nothing clever about them — they have a number, a printed chiti, a receipt, a fixed time, and a small group of people who go every day without being reminded.

Set the number before you set the rate

Most committees set the rate first, which is why they either over-collect and embarrass people or under-collect and cut the pandal. Work in this order instead.

Write the budget gap. Total budget minus everything already committed. This is the number chanda has to close.
Count what you are knocking on. Households, shop units, or a mix. Be honest about the count, not the optimistic one.
Divide. The gap divided by the number of doors gives the average you need per door.
Round to a rate that needs no discussion. A round, small number gets paid. An awkward one gets debated, and debated amounts become zero amounts.
Set a floor and a ceiling, and a small number of middle slabs. Everyone should be able to say what they are giving without a negotiation.

A worked example, and it is only an example: if the gap is ₹6,00,000 across 300 doors, the average is ₹2,000 per door. A chiti of ₹1,000 / ₹2,000 / ₹5,000, with ₹500 accepted without comment, produces roughly the right total and gives no one a reason to say no.

What the rate should key on

Per household is the simplest and works in residential lanes. Keep the rate identical for every house on the street — differentiating by house appearance turns collection into a judgement exercise.

Per shop unit works on commercial streets, where paying capacity genuinely varies. A rate that assumes shops can pay more than residents is fair and resents nobody, provided the committee says so openly rather than deciding quietly.

Per square foot of frontage is used in some mixed areas, and it works well because it is impersonal. You are not asking about money; you are asking about space, and the committee has a measuring tape as an answer to a difficult conversation.

Whatever you choose, the same rate must be on every chiti in a committee’s bundle. Committees that lose trust are almost always the ones with two versions of the chiti in circulation.

The receipt is the whole trick

A chita without a receipt is a request. A chita with a receipt is a transaction, and people pay transactions.

Pre-numbered, in duplicate. The counterfoil stays in the book, the leaf goes to the donor. Pre-numbering means a missing number is visible, which is the cheapest audit there is.
Name, amount, date, signature, collector’s initials. All five, every time. A donor who cannot be found in the book two years later will assume the worst, and they will be right to.
One book, one keeper. Not a duplicate book in two houses. If the books disagree, the money is not the problem — the trust is.
Never collect without a leaf. If someone says “I already gave” and you have no leaf, issue one from the next number. Every donor leaves with a receipt in hand.

The door-to-day routine

Teams of two, not one. A single person at a door is a confrontation; two people is a visit. The second person writes while the first talks.
Fixed evening slot. The same hour every day, so residents learn the rhythm and stop being surprised. Surprise is what makes collection feel intrusive.
Cover the same street every day until it is done. Not a different street each evening because the first one was harder. Sweeps work; tours do not.
Carry the chiti, spare books, a pen, and cash. Change for a ₹1,000 note is not a small problem on a residential lane.
Tally the same evening. Cash counted, chitis counted, books matched, the day’s total written down and initialled before anyone goes home.

Collecting digitally, without making it awkward

UPI has quietly become the normal way to pay a chita, and it solves the cash-handling problem that committees dislike most. It also removes the person-to-person moment, so it needs a little deliberate design.

Print the committee’s own QR code on the chiti, with the committee name in the UPI ID. Donations then arrive recognisably, without anyone having to ask for a screenshot.
Still hand over a printed leaf. Record the payment on the spot, even if the money moves later. The leaf is what the donor keeps.
Reconcile once a day. Match the UPI statement against the collection book. A committee that skips this ends up with a total it cannot substantiate.
Do not shame the cashless. “Digital only, cashless” sounds like a policy and reads like a suspicion. Offer both, cheerfully, and let the donor choose.
For apartment blocks, put one QR at the notice board and one at the gate desk, with the treasurer’s name on it. Collecting from 40 flats individually is a week of work; the notice board does it in a day.

Five conversations nobody prepares for

“We don’t do puja in our family”

Do not argue about the festival. Ask what they do instead, and give the same rate to everyone on the street. A committee that treats a house as a house rather than a target keeps its goodwill, and goodwill is what makes the next year possible.

“We give to the temple instead”

This is a real contribution to the same community, and a committee that fights about it will lose the donor permanently. Some committees formally list temple and mosque donations as part of the household contribution. If your committee does not want to, decline gracefully and move on the same evening.

“We gave last year, ask the secretary”

Every committee loses last year’s books. Say so honestly, offer the smallest rate that still counts, and close it out. The alternative — insisting — converts a loyal donor into an avoided one.

The shop that is doing badly this year

Ask for a smaller amount and write it on the leaf. A shop that pays ₹500 and feels respected will pay ₹2,000 next year. A shop that pays nothing because it was cornered will pay nothing again, and will explain why to the whole street.

The household that pays and wants recognition

Some donors want their name on the pandal or the notice board. Give it — clearly, at a level that is proportionate — rather than resisting. Fighting about it in front of the street costs more than the flex board did.

Four things not to do

Do not post a list of who has not paid. This is the single fastest way to make a committee hated on its own street. It converts a financial question into a moral one.
Do not compare with the pandal across the street. “They are giving five thousand” is not a fundraising line, it is an insult.
Do not chase people at the pandal during Ashthi. They are praying and they are in a crowd. Anything said then is remembered badly.
Do not let one family collect everything. Concentration in one collector is the most common reason a committee’s accounts fall apart — not dishonesty, just exhaustion, and then mistakes.

Publish the account — this is the part that pays off

Every chita line item says the money goes to the pandal. Almost no committee demonstrates that it did. This is the cheapest competitive advantage available to a small puja.

Total collected, total spent, balance. Three lines on the notice board, updated weekly during collection, in a public place.
Brochure with the final account printed. Include the previous year’s number too. Growth is the argument that recruits the next year’s collectors.
Name the auditor. Not a relative of the treasurer. A single independent signature is worth more than a paragraph about integrity.
Say what was not spent on. “No liquor was purchased for the pandal premises” reads as a statement of values and costs nothing.

A committee that shows its account does not have to ask twice. That is the return on all of the above.

A collection calendar that fits the season

July: budget gap calculated, rate decided, chiti printed, books numbered, teams formed.
August: chiti distributed to team members with their street assignment. No collection yet — this is the month the committee agrees the rate and stops arguing about it.
First half of September: the real sweep. Same streets, same slot, daily tally. This is where most of the money is collected.
Late September: follow-up on the open streets only, by a different person from the one who was refused. A fresh face is worth three visits.
October: accounts closed, brochure printed, account published, and the chita books archived for next year.

Our day-by-day plan page turns this into dated tasks. The money side of the season is covered in what a Kolkata puja committee actually costs, and the governance questions in how to run a puja committee. If your puja is a small neighbourhood one, the sabeki puja page is worth a look before you fix the rate.

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