Revenue employees not to attend to land-related work

Revenue JAC demands steps to plug lacunae in land administration system: JAC

In a significant development, the Telangana Revenue Joint Action Committee has decided not to look into any land administration related issues from Thursday in the wake of the brutal killing of Abdullapurmet Tahsildar Vijaya Reddy

The Revenue JAC has decided that the revenue employees should not take up any land related issues including updation of pattadar passbooks. There are about 10 lakh passbooks to be issued that are placed in category B because of disputes between two parties or pending legal cases in courts.

Delicate aspects

“There are many delicate aspects in land dispute cases where a revenue officer or revenue machinery cannot exercise their discretion and issue pattadar passbooks to one party or the other till the dispute is resolved. Yet the government is indifferent to the pressure on revenue machinery and problems being faced by them from the public frustrated with the situation. The government is not giving any direction or solution to address the grievances of farmers and land owners in a time-bound manner”, said Telangana Revenue JAC leaders V.Latchi Reddy, S.Ramulu, G.Upendra Rao and others. The main reason behind the extreme act of violence against Vijaya Reddy was one such demand for updating a passbook by the accused Suresh for a disputed land. Under such circumstances, revenue employees were apprehensive of taking up the land administration work, they said.

Latchi Reddy, State president, Deputy Collectors Assocation-Telangana and S.Ramulu, State president, Telangana Tahasildars Association , G.Upendra Rao, State president , Village Revenue Officers Association demanded here on Wednesday that immediate measures were required for a better and efficient land administration system. Otherwise, the problems of farmers or the difficulties being faced by the revenue employees could not be solved. Hence, the decision to keep away from land administration work from Thursday, they asserted.

The JAC leaders said that land administration used to be the prime responsibility of Revenue department once but now other duties from protocol to implementation of various welfare programmes became important. Ultimately, revenue employees were not able to give enough time for the core work of land administration. There were several lapses in the land administration system coming in the way of providing efficient services to farmers and this had marred the reputation of employees in the eyes of public. “We will attend to other responsibilities bestowed on the department like implementing welfare programmes,” they said.

Revenue employees across the State kept away from duty and continued their dharnas in front of collectorates on Wednesday to protest against the brutal killing of Vijaya Reddy.