Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is known for choosing the path less travelled. Now he wants to root out corruption in government departments. To begin with, he is focusing on cleansing the Revenue Department’s stables but to be successful in this endeavour, he would have to turn the Musi through them.
Though Chandrasekhar Rao’s move had jelled with the people who had been suffering on account of the greed of a section of venal officers in the department, he has earned a number of foes too, in the form of the revenue staff who are up in arms against him for branding them as outright corrupt.
All the announcements the chief minister had made during the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections on ending the cancer of corruption is believed to have paid him rich electoral dividends, which would be known only on May 23, when the results would come out. But his resolve to end corruption had ruffled the feathers of the revenue employees.
They have been crying foul that the chief minister had ignored completely the services they are doing for the people. They argue that some black sheep might be there in the department, but for that matter, such black sheep would be there in all departments. The Village Revenue Officers are already on warpath with the government. They have announced that they would be on ‘work to rule’ agitation and that they would not do the work of other departments.
Music to people
The chief minister’s categorical assurance to the people on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections was to bring forth a new Revenue Act, to end corruption in land administration. Very recently, he spoke to a victim of the Revenue Department, acting on a post on Facebook and ordered the administration to go to his rescue. Taking this as a cue, many such victims are coming up with accounts of persecution by the staff for works relating to main mutation — change of the name of the owner of the land to the buyer in revenue records and the issue of pattadar passbooks.
The chief minister in his speeches had also referred to one important reform that he wants to usher in. That is conferring conclusive title to a piece of land. This announcement has come as music to people as this would rid the State of all disputes on ownership of land. This is a very significant announcement since till now there is no one to certify who is the owner of the parcel of land in question.
If the chief minister brings forth the legislation and makes it mandatory for the government to bestow a clear title, the State would acquire the distinction of the only State that had attempted the impossible. If it succeeds in this arduous enterprise which may take years as it requires a microscopic survey of all the land holdings, it would add one more feather in KCR’s cap. If the title is registered at the time of registration, it would end litigation in courts on ownership of land.
Unhelpful staff
At present, when one buys a piece of land, one is taking a major risk since he has no way of knowing if the seller is the legitimate owner of the land or not and if not, who would go to his rescue if the rightful owner suddenly appears and claims that the land in question belongs to him. But the revenue employees fear that this entire exercise of surveying of land by allotting a unique ID number to each parcel of land will be entrusted to private agencies to implement the Act he wants to bring in.
The revenue staff say that the government has to take them into confidence and that not all staff are venal. They also want to augmentation of the staff too, as the department is severely understaffed after the formation of new districts. There is no doubt that the work the chief minister has taken up is in the wide public interest. But he has miles to go before he could sleep as he would have to deal with unhelpful staff and bureaucracy which are resistant to change.
Resistant to change
There is no doubt that the work the chief minister has taken up is in the wide public interest. But he has miles to go before he could sleep as he would have to deal with unhelpful staff and bureaucracy which are resistant to change