CHENNAI: In a significant administrative reform, the revenue department has eliminated the century-old practice of Revenue Inspectors (RIs) performing field verifications while issuing income and legal heir certificates.
According to the revised verification system which came into effect in all districts except Chennai from June 1, RIs will no longer be needed to conduct a second field verification after verification reports are forwarded to them by Village Administrative Officers, for all applications related to income certificates and legal heir certificates.
"Applications that require mandatory re-verification by an RI would be selected by the eSevai application," MA Siddique, Commissioner of Revenue Administration, said in his recent order issued to District Collectors.
"The select cases will be shown in red in the list of tasks assigned to an RI online. The other applications will be highlighted in green. For applications marked as green category tasks, the RI need not undertake any field re-verification," added Siddique.
The revenue department has not explained the criteria based on which applications are marked red or green. However, the move is expected to reduce delays in distribution of income and legal heir certificates. Currently, due to the large number of applications, RIs are unable to conduct field verifications for all applications and approve the VAO’s report online to close the application within the turnaround time.
Siddique said the new system is being introduced on a pilot basis only for income and legal heir certificates. "Based on this experience, the system will be extended to other certificates too," he said. However, Siddique warned of severe disciplinary action against RIs if they fail to conduct reverification of select applications marked in red.
A section of revenue employees termed the move as a face-saving attempt by the government since conducting field verifications for all the applications is nearly impossible. "The boundaries of districts and taluks have been redrawn over the last 50 years but jurisdiction of RIs have not been rationalised in accordance with the rising population. Several new schemes are introduced but the strength of RIs has not been increased. Except for community certificates and social security schemes, the need for field verification should be reviewed for all other documents," said an RI.