It was literally bureaucracy landing at the doorsteps of citizens with the inauguration of ‘Revenue Adalat’ in Dakshina Kannada district here on Tuesday.
Following the ‘success’ of the experiment in Kolar district, the one-of-its-kind concept is being implemented in the district for the first time to solve cases at the local level, said Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim.
For one day a week, revenue officials will descend on a gram panchayat in each taluk to conduct the adalat.
First sitting
On Tuesday, the first-ever sitting of the Kandaya Adalat was organised at Chennaithodi gram panchayat in Bantwal taluk where nearly 168 applications were furnished.
The adalat will deal with problems with the rights, tenancy and crops (RTC) documents – such as change of name, property details, other discrepancies – and legalising divided properties that share the same survey number.
“Cases that are undisputed (that is, no objection from a third party) and those not pursued in other legal courts can be dealt with in the adalat. This will reduce the burden on the people and revenue officials,” said Mr. Ibrahim.
Homework done
He said a person will have to spend more than Rs. 25,000 in legal fees and wait for nearly two years for a correction in the name mentioned in the RTC.
“In this adalat, the revenue officials will have done their homework before reaching the village. They have to verify the documents for the correction and the process can be completed freely in one day,” he said.
Tough task
However, with there being 422 gram panchayats in the district – Bantwal, for instance, has 48 gram panchayats – the DC said it would take nearly a year to complete one round of proceedings in the district.
Revenue officials said pending applications in the offices of the Assistant Commissioner would drastically reduce with the adalat. “Within six months, we can solve the problems of divided RTCs in our jurisdiction. Among all errors in the RTC, the major violation in Dakshina Kannada is for division of land without changing the survey number,” said H.K. Krishnamurthy, Assistant Commissioner (Puttur).
No repeated visits
B. Ramanath Rai, Minister for Forests, Ecology and Environment, who inaugurated the adalat, said that instead of a person heading to the taluk office repeatedly for corrections, a resolution of the problems could be sought within a day at the adalat.
2,000 applications for Akrama-Sakrama
More than 2,000 persons have applied for the legalisation of encroached land through the Akrama-Sakrama scheme which has been enforced in rural areas, said Deputy Commissioner A.B. Ibrahim.
Of these, more than 500 applications were filed from Mangalore taluk for the regularisation of five cents, he said on the sidelines of the inauguration of the Kandaya Adalat here on Tuesday.
The scheme was launched on June 1.
However, it would take time to process the applications as the State government is yet to clarify on what kind of encroachments – for example, encroachments on kumki land – could be regularised, Mr. Ibrahim said.
B. Ramanath Rai, Minister for Forests, Ecology and Environment, said the process for application was being simplified, with the need to submit income certificate already having been done away with.
