The fate of thousands of village revenue officers hangs in balance as the government has resolved to do away with the VRO system citing inconsistencies in the existing mechanism leading to piling up of disputes in land-related matters.
There are close to 5,500 VROs engaged in the revenue-related works at the village level as against sanctioned strength of around 6,900. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has more than once expressed his unhappiness with the system and is reported to have explained about the negative feelings among the people about the existing set up to the VROs during a recent meeting with them.
The State government has accordingly resolved to introduce a legislation to scrap the system in the Legislature in a day or two. This was as part of efforts to cleanse the system paving the way for a transparent and efficient revenue administration. “This is apparently the first step towards speeding up mutation process and reducing manual intervention through introduction of online services,” senior officials said.
Though a well-intentioned move to ensure transparency in land dealings, there is, however, no clarity as yet on the manner in which the existing VROs would be accommodated. Sources said that the government has started ascertaining the requirement of junior assistant cadre staff in different departments so that the VROs belonging to the same cadre could be accommodated.
But, members of the VROs associations claim that the exercise had to be taken up in a calibrated manner as the job charts of junior assistants in other departments is at complete variance with that of the VROs. “There are officials for all departments at the village level. VROs act like a bridge between the village and mandal level officials in revenue related matters,” a senior representative of the Revenue Services Association said.
The government should create clusters of villages and deploy the VROs to coordinate with the mandal and district level administration rather than terminating the system altogether, he suggested. It would be better for the government to take up the exercise after ensuring that hosting of land related revenue services online through Dharani portal and ordering a comprehensive land survey across the State to ascertain the extent of lands with clear title and those in litigations, the official opined.
