Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 11: Though complaints about discrepancies in revenue records is a common phenomenon in the State yet there is no mechanism to remove the same and the instructions issued by the higher-ups of the Revenue Department from time to time have been gathering dust in the absence of adequate manpower and lack of focus towards re-organization of the department.
As per the standing instructions from the top brass of the Revenue Department, a Girdawar has to ensure 100% checking of the revenue record of the area under his control while as a Naib Tehsildar is required to check 50% of the record. Similarly, Tehsildar and the Sub-Divisional Magistrates/ Assistant Commissioner Revenue have to check 25% and 15% revenue record of their area of jurisdiction. Even the Deputy Commissioner is supposed to check 5% revenue record.
Besides these, there are also instructions for all the revenue officers from Tehsildars to Additional Deputy Commissioners to make inspection of revenue records village wise maintained by the Patwaris in order to ensure removal of discrepancies.
As per these instructions, each Additional Deputy Commissioner is required to inspect two villages, 3 villages by each Assistant Commissioner and 5 villages by each Tehsildar per month and the progress made on this account is required to be furnished to the office of Financial Commissioner Revenue without any fail.
However, none of these instructions are being followed by the revenue officers because of varied reasons particularly shortage of manpower as a result of which discrepancies continue to persist in the revenue records much to the disappointment of people, who are the worst sufferers of lack of proper and time-bound mechanism to make the necessary corrections in the records, official sources told EXCELSIOR.
No-doubt the top brass of the Revenue Department from time to time made attempts to remove discrepancies by issuing instructions but the objective could not be achieved till date as ground realities were not paid required focus, they said. “On one side there is no focus on the much needed reorganization of the Revenue Department and on the other side even the sanctioned manpower has not been made available”, sources added.
The situation vis-à-vis manpower shortage can be gauged from the fact that as per the ground situation there is a requirement of around 500 Patwaris in Jammu district but the sanctioned strength of Patwaris is only 234. Moreover, even 50% of the sanctioned strength remains unfilled thereby putting enormous load on the available manpower and making mockery of so-called attempts aimed at ensuring discrepancies free revenue records as Patwaris are the basic manpower for the maintenance and entries in the records, sources said.
“It is unfortunate that the respective Financial Commissioners Revenue only laid focus on issuing instructions rather than assessing the ground situation and taking necessary steps accordingly”, they regretted, adding “even they failed to analyze the outcome of their instructions, which otherwise should have been a top most priority”.
Responding to a question regarding reorganization of Settlement Organization and designation of 7 Regional Directors, sources said, “even the settlement exercise cannot be completed in the absence of adequate manpower on ground as ultimately Patwaris have to play a vital role in this regard”.
In response to another query, they said, “even use of information technology in making discrepancy free revenue record has not received required focus till date despite the fact that this would reduce manpower requirement considerably”.
When contacted, a senior officer of the Revenue Department said on the condition of anonymity that around 1200 Patwaris are shortly going to be appointed following which the ground situation would improve and help in removal of discrepancies in the revenue records.
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