The sight of a couple filling their notice for marriage without a place to sit at the registration office was enough for Patna district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agarwal to decide to shift it on Friday.

The registration office at the Patna collectorate - where people go to get married, to file marriage notices or to register land - is one shoddily maintained room. Water leaks from dilapidated ceilings, there is no place for people to sit or even a proper background for a married couple to get their picture clicked.

Agarwal, who was on an inspection, spoke to a 30-year-old man waiting to apply for a marriage notice with his fiancée. The couple filled the form standing at a counter where an official sat across a grilled barrier. Disappointment was writ large on the couple's faces and Agarwal decided to shift the registration office to a former ministerial bungalow in Chajjubagh.

"It is a lifetime memory and should be beautiful," said Agarwal. "I felt really bad when I saw the couple standing and filling their form. We have decided to shift the registration office to a bungalow at Chajjubagh."

The shift will be complete by the first week of September, he said.

Two rooms have been selected in the bungalow and one of them would be decked up as a mandap for the legal formalities to be conducted. Another room will be kept for photography. "There will be a colourful wall in the background for wedding photographs to be taken," said Agarwal.

On an average, 25 couples visit the registration office daily, either to get married or to get their marriage certificate. The office generates an annual revenue of Rs 800 crore from marriage and land registration but the facilities are sad to say the least. The room is small and couples have to be stand in a narrow space for their photographs to be taken.

"People pay lakhs for land registrationand we are not even able to provide them drinking water," Agarwal said. "This is not done, they must not leave the premises with a bad memory."

The 30-year-old Agarwal met spoke to The Telegraph on condition of anonymity. "We had such a bad experience at the registration office," he said. "I never thought that a marriage registration office could look so horrible. There was not even a chair to sit."

Couples able to register their union at the Chajjubagh bungalow are promised better facilities such as air conditioned waiting lounge, sofa, chair, television, drinking water, canteen and toilets.

The registration office was established in 1795.