Telangana Revenue Department to fight graft with online notices
HYDERABAD: Even before the new Revenue Act comes into force, several key reforms are being implemented in Telangana in order to reduce corruption and simplify governance. The State government has started implementing an ‘online notice’ system in the Revenue Department, which is expected to root out corruption.
For instance, the practice of issuing physical notices at the time of mutation is being done away with as it breeds corruption. The Revenue staff serve ‘land notices’ to farmers and demand bribe ranging from Rs 20,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
“Once the bribe is paid, the demand notice, which is in a physical format, is torn into pieces. Because of this, people end up paying crores as bribes every year. This is why we have instructed the staff to issue notices through the online mode only, in which case they cannot resort to corruption,” a top official of the Revenue Department told Express.
If the online notice is cancelled, it would be known to the higher officials. “We have also instructed the staff to cite the reasons for the cancellation of the notice,” the official sources said.
“This will help the people to avoid being harassed by the staff, bring transparency into the system and reduce corruption,” the official sources said. Several VROs confirmed that they received specific instructions to issue only online notices.
Income certificates
Another reform made in Telangana is issuing of income certificates online at Mee Seva centres. “It has come to our notice that some officials are demanding Rs 2,000 for issuing income certificate. As it has now been made online, 90 per cent certificates will be given through the online mode.
If the applicant owns a house, four-wheeler and others, the MROs will inspect these and issue income certificates physically. But such cases will be less than 10 per cent,” the sources said, adding that it would save Rs 400 crore to Rs 500 crore of people’s money as corruption would be eliminated.
Likewise, the process of obtaining caste certificates, too, has been simplified. There is no need to take caste certificates frequently now.
“As part of our efforts to simplify governance, we are introducing a single platform for all grievances. Whether the grievance is lodged through WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter or any other means, these will be routed through a single platform.
The system will be in place in the next two months and there will be one grievance redressal centre. This will help us to track all grievances. We will also set up a call centre and make calls to the complainants to confirm if their grievance has been resolved or not,” official sources said. The tenders for the system would be finalised shortly.