MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently sought a report from the State government on the steps taken to fill up vacancies in the Survey and Land Records Department.
Justice D Krishnakumar gave the direction after he was informed that the staff strength in the department was not sufficient. “Nearly 70 per cent of the field assistant posts and 40 per cent of the field surveyor posts are still vacant,” the judge noted. He was hearing a batch of petitions over delay in disposal of online patta transfer applications.
During the previous hearing, the government had informed the court that around 6.13 lakh online patta transfer applications were pending in the State as on September 1. The Additional Director of Survey and Land Records recently told the court that 1.02 lakh applications for patta transfer alone, and 6.62 lakh for sub-division-cum-patta transfer are pending.
Appearing before the court, pursuant to summons issued in the previous hearing, the officer also assured that the above backlog applications would be cleared in three months with the current manpower. Recording the same, the judge observed that 40,000 patta applications are pending as on December 2020 and fresh applications have also been filed at the rate of 1.18 lakh applications per month.
Therefore, including the fresh applications, 6,62,330 patta applications are pending before the authorities concerned as of now. Granting time to the authorities to file a report on the filling up of vacancies, the judge adjourned the case to October 26.