Not just the corrupt individual officers, but the inadequate infrastructure in the Registration and Stamps Department too is showing it in poor light.
At least that is what some officials of the department feel. Despite being one of the top income-earning wings of the government, it doesn’t have adequate infrastructure. The quality of servers — often the government tom-toms that most of its services were computerised or available online — is so poor that employees are forced to wait long to enter data or complete registration process.
“When other companies or government departments are using latest software analytic tools to assess performance, we’re not able to even transfer the data among the officers quickly, thanks to the outdated servers,” an officer of the department said.
Despite repeated requests, the top brass never showed interest in uprading the computers or servers, he claims. “Sometimes, we need to upload documents or key in details more than five times because of the poor servers and networking,” he said.
With such sub-standard servers, integration of the data with other departments or within the department had remained a dream. Insufficient staff is affecting the performance of the department. While the sanctioned strength is 1,500, only 800 are available as of now.
“Naturally, we have to hire workers on contract basis to get the work done. Being temporary employees, they easily get lured by bribes,” says another officer. Even if instances of corrupt practices come to light, all that the officials can do is sack the concerned which ultimately affects the execution of the work.