Matrimonial sites are a very sought after option for people looking for prospective grooms and brides. And while more and more people may resort online to find a partner, an extremely regressive website has come to fore. The website helps a groom to find the worth of dowry amount he is liable to receive depending upon his skin colour. "Your dream dowry amount awaits you. Be a man, and slog hard for it," is the message one would be greeted to on this site. Madhya Pradesh Member of the parliament Jyotiraditya Scindia has brought it to notice when he tweeted pictures of this website on Twitter. He asked the Prime Minister of India and Ministry of Women and Child Development to look into it.

The online portal asks a person to fill in all details like the age, caste, profession, salary and colour of their skin. The website promotes dowry as a hard earned money for grooms. The skin colour options have even more derogatory options to choose from. One clicking on it, it displays options like “pitch black (not visible on a moonless night)” and “wheatish (Almost white. Would need some Fair n Lovely)”. The caste section goes on from Baniya to Brahmins. On putting all details, the site gives an amount and displays a congratulatory message.

Check out the tweet posted by Jyotiraditya Scindia about this dowry calculator website:

Check the skin colour options on this website:

The skin colour has derogatory options (Photo credits: Screenshot)

According to this dowry calculator website, an IAS officer should get 1 crore as dowry amount. He could also expect a lavish wedding, land property, expensive jewellery and also a foreign trip sponsored by his in-laws. The website also gives suggestions about how one could achieve a greater amount. In India, there is a dowry prohibition Act of 1961 which prohibits receiving/giving of dowry. It is also punishable under different provisions of the Indian Penal Code. In a time when the country is seeing so many cases of dowry deaths and harassment, this website is quite shocking and shameful.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 30, 2018 06:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).