HYDERABAD: In view of the growing complaints of rampant corruption among the lower- level officials of the Revenue Department, the Andhra Pradesh government is planning to remove some of their discretionary powers and thereby ensure transparency and accountability in their functioning.
Disclosing this to newsmen after taking part in a meeting of Joint Collectors here on Saturday, Deputy Chief Minister KE Krishnamurthy said this was being done as the government was getting a lot of complaints from the general public against the lower level revenue officials.
“Many people complain that lower level officials of the Revenue Department are harassing them for even small services and issuance of certificates. Hence, the government is planning to remove certain discretionary powers of MROs and VROs,” he said.
“We have asked the Joint Collectors to keep an eye on the activities of the MROs and VROs. This will help us in checking corruption among them to a greater extent,” he added. Similarly, Krishnamurthy said the State government was planning to delegate certain powers, now vested with the Joint Collector-level officials, to lower level officials so that simple works could be done without waiting for appointments with senior officials. The Deputy Chief Minister, who is also holding the revenue portfolio, said a lot of complaints were coming from people about their pattadar passbooks being rejected by revenue officials.
“Why are such a large number of pattadar passbooks being rejected? I don’t understand it. Why are the officials making people suffer? This has to change,” he said.
Krishnamurthy further said that the e-pattadar passbook system has been introduced to reduce litigation and ensure transparency. Instead of making the system a success, the officials were creating problems, which was very unfortunate, he added. According to him, the entire process of issuance of fool-proof e-pattadar passbooks was being done for more transparency.
The integration of land records data of the Revenue and Registration Departments, and updation of records by automatic mutations, would result in transparency, security and time-bound issue of records.
This would protect the interests of land-owners and would reduce or avoid litigations.
He said that till now corrections had been done in about 4,40,644 e-pattadar passbooks across the State.
“The Joint Collectors have been given the responsibility to see that all the corrections in e-pattadar passbooks are carried out at the earliest,” he added.