TIRUPATTUR: The Members of the Tamil Nadu Revenue Officers Association (TNROA) have boycotted services except for important ones and have been holding an indefinite protest since Tuesday outside the Tirupattur collectorate and taluk office.
As part of their third phase of protests across districts, the association with officials ranging from office assistants to tahsildars has outlined nine key demands, including expediting the government order to amend the titles of junior and senior revenue inspectors, addressing the three-year backlog of office assistant vacancies, and resolving stagnation in senior revenue inspector promotions.
They also urged the government to revert the quota for compassionate appointments from 5% to 25%. Speaking to TNIE, M Kumaran, senior revenue inspector at the Natrampalli Taluk Office, said that the protests are ongoing in all districts except those experiencing heavy rainfall.
“Important public services and those that can be carried out online are continuing. For other services, we are asking people to return in two to three days. Until the government addresses our concerns, we will continue to protest,” he said.
Other demands include allocating sufficient time and funds for processing public grievances received through schemes like Makkaludan Mudhalvar, Ungalai Thedi Ungal Uril, and Mudhalvarin Mugavari. They also call for the appointment of more revenue officers to handle grievances under these schemes and reduce work pressure.
The association further demanded a halt to plans to abolish revenue department posts, including those under the Urban Land Tax scheme. Additional demands include publishing the long-pending deputy collector and district revenue officer lists, restoring patta (land title) change powers to local deputy tahsildars (recently centralised) and reinstating 97 disaster management posts that were abolished.
The protests were triggered by the government’s inaction on their demands following two earlier protests; a mass grievance submission at collectorates on October 25 and a mass leave protest on October 29, the officers said.